How to force turn off iphone 11

Plus how to restart the iPhone 11 series

Updated on November 17, 2021

What To Know

  • Hold down both the Side button and either Volume button. Once the slider appears, slide it left to right and then let the phone shut off.
  • A basic restart is the same as turning the iPhone 11 off and on.
  • Force restart iPhone 11 series: Press Volume Up, then Volume Down, and press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears.

While you probably won't need to turn off your iPhone 11 series phone very often, this article explains how it works. It also covers how to restart and force restart all iPhone 11 models.

The instructions in this article apply to all iPhone 11 series phones—iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max—running iOS 13 and up.

How To Turn Off iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max

Most of the time, you don't need to turn off your iPhone 11. You can just put it to sleep instead. If you really need to conserve battery, you may want to power down the iPhone 11 (though you should try Low Power Mode, too). No matter what iPhone 11 model you have, here's how to turn it off:

  1. Press and hold either Volume button.

  2. Keep holding the Volume button and then press and hold the Side button.

  3. Keep holding until the Slide to Power Off slider appears at the top of the screen.

  4. Let go of the buttons, move the slider from left to right and let the iPhone power down.

To turn any iPhone 11 model back on, press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears on the screen. Let go of the Side button and let the iPhone keep starting up.

How To Restart iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max

You'll want to restart your iPhone 11 more often than you turn it off. That's because restarting is often the first step in fixing all kinds of glitches and bugs. In most cases, you can reboot your phone just by following the instructions from the last section for turning a phone on and off.

In some cases, though, your iPhone 11 may have a problem that prevents you from turning it off using those instructions. In that situation, you need to try a force restart your iPhone (also called a force reset or a hard reset). Here's what to do:

  1. Press and release Volume Up.

  2. Press and release Volume Down.

  3. Press and hold the Side button.

  4. Keep holding it after the screen goes black. When the Apple logo appears, release the Side button and let the iPhone 11 restart.

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Restarting your iPhone is faster than shutting down and then starting up again, plus it always works where sometimes your phone won't respond to the shut down swipe.

How to force turn off iphone 11

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The steps you need to take to force restart your iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max are different if you're used to an iPhone with a Home button. Here's how to do it.

You could go through your entire use of an iPhone without ever having to restart it, but that's unlikely. At some point you're going to find that it's going wrong and you need to power it down and start again. However, the way that you do this has changed over the years, and even now there are different ways.

This works with the new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. However, if you have any iPhone X-style model — so any iPhone since the Home button was removed — you can use the same technique. You could shut down by:

  • Pressing and holding both the volume up and the Sleep/Wake button
  • Swiping to chose Slide to Power Off when prompted

Having done that, you could then start the iPhone back up again by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button until you see the Apple logo.

This is Apple's recommended method, and actually just about the only one it even describes. There is a brief line in the official support documents about how you can shut down an iPhone by going to Settings, General, and choosing Shut Down.

However, in our experience that can be surprisingly slow. Especially if we're pressing the button through the plastic of a protective case, it can feel like it takes an extremely long time before the Apple logo appears.

How to force turn off iphone 11

This is what you see when you do it Apple's way. This is shutting down the iPhone before starting it up again. It's just not always possible do.

Whether that's really measurably longer or just feels like it, though, there is a faster way — and it's one more guaranteed to work.

If your iPhone is having serious problems, you may not even be able to make the Slide to Power Off swipe at all.

You will always, though, be able to force an immediate restart. Briefly, what you're going to end up doing is pressing and holding both the volume up and the Sleep/Wake buttons again. However, you're first going to effectively tell the iPhone that you want to restart instead of shut down.

  • Press the volume up button once
  • Press the volume down button once
  • Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button
  • Keep holding even when you see Slide to Power Off
  • Keep holding until you see the Apple logo

Do this carefully.

If you skip the pressing of the volume up and down buttons, and instead just, for instance, hold volume up and Sleep/Wake, you get a version of the shutdown page. Rather than the regular one, it has that same Slide to Power Down option, but also an Emergency SOS button.

And that button has a countdown that is immediately running. Hold those buttons for more than a few seconds, and your iPhone will dial the emergency services. We know your iPhone was in a bad way, but you don't want paramedics at your door.

How to force turn off iphone 11

Take those fingers off the buttons right now — or instead of restarting your iPhone, you'll be talking to an ambulance crew

Follow these instructions carefully, though, and your iPhone will spring back to life.

How do I force my iPhone 11 to turn off when frozen?

If iPhone isn't responding, and you can't turn it off then on, try forcing it to restart..
Press and quickly release the volume up button..
Press and quickly release the volume down button..
Press and hold the side button..
When the Apple logo appears, release the side button..