Looking For A Fresh Start? Here’s How to Hard Reset Your iPhone 8

Suppose that for some reason you need to do a hard reset on your new iPhone 8 or 8 Plus. Naturally, you grip both the power (now on the side) and the volume buttons to initiate—oops, wrong move. You’re brought to the new SOS feature.

So, what should you do?

What’s a hard reset?

Before we finally hard reset your precious iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, let’s look at what it means and when you should do it.

Also known as factory reset or master reset, a hard reset will revert your smartphone back to how it is when it was fresh out of the factory, so when you do this to a device all settings, user data, and third-party applications will be erased.

Hard resetting your phone is usually done when the smartphone is acting up or is about to be sold. Some iPhone users report observing weird things when they periodically hard reset a device, while others claim it’s perfectly safe to do so regularly. Just to be on the safe side, let’s listen to Apple:

A reset should be done only if turning iPhone off and on doesn’t resolve the problem.

How to hard reset the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

As mentioned earlier, the old iPhone 7 trick doesn’t work in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus anymore due to the new feature. Here’s how to hard reset the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus:

1. Press and quickly release the Volume Up This is found on the left side of the iPhone.
2. Press and quickly release the Volume Down
3. Press and hold the Side Button—or the power button—on the right side until you see the Apple logo.

Voila! You’ll be helped by the setup wizard at this point.

How to enter DFU mode on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

There are times, however, when a reset cannot solve the problem, such as when recovering from a bad jailbreak or from a persistently hanging beta. Enter the Device Firmware Update mode, which will allow the iPhone to interface with iTunes without loading the operating system or the bootloader. The steps for entering the DFU mode in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is actually similar to that of its predecessor.

1. Turn off the iPhone and connect to a computer using Lighting to USB cable. Make sure that iTunes is running.
2. Press and hold down the Side Button on the right side of the device for three seconds.
3. Press and hold the Volume Down button without releasing the Side Button for about five seconds. If a notice saying “Plug into iTunes” comes up, it means you’ve held down for long and have to go back to square one.
4. Release the Side Button but continue holding the Volume Down button for about five seconds. Again, mind the notice.
5. If the previous steps were done correctly, your iPhone’s screen will remain blank and a dialog prompt will appear on your PC: “iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes.” In the dialog that will pop up, look for Restore iPhone.
6. To exit the DFU mode, press the Volume Down button until you see the Apple logo on the iPhone screen.

There you have it! The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus’s new trick might take a few tries to master but it’s actually easy when you need a fresh start.

About the writer. Ahmed Bagoun is a phone enthusiast and a self-admitted Apple fanboy. He has been in the phone business for 6+ years. He’s currently the owner of Jad wireless phone repair shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the phone trade-in website Swift Tech Buy.