If your phone is hot to the touch, making unusual sounds, or has a visibly swollen or bulging back, do not attempt to charge it or force restart it. A swollen battery is a fire and explosion risk. Set the phone on a hard, flat, non-flammable surface away from you and seek professional help immediately.
A frozen or unresponsive phone is one of the most common emergencies people face. The screen may be completely black, the phone may be stuck on one image, or it may simply not respond to any taps or button presses. In most cases this is a temporary software glitch and can be resolved quickly without losing any data. This guide walks you through the fastest and safest steps to get your phone working again.
- An app crashed and locked up the entire system
- The phone ran out of storage and has no room left to operate
- A software update was interrupted or failed partway through
- The phone overheated and throttled itself into an unresponsive state
- Too many apps running at once overwhelmed the phone’s memory
- The phone battery is critically low and the screen has gone dark
- A rare but temporary system error locked the touchscreen
- Do not panic — a frozen phone almost never means data loss. Stay calm and work through these steps one at a time
- Wait 30 seconds — sometimes a phone is simply processing something heavy. Give it a moment before doing anything
- Check if the screen is just dark — press the Power button once to see if the screen lights up. The phone may be on but the screen timed out
- Plug it in — if the battery is critically low, the phone may appear frozen but simply have no power. Connect it to a charger and wait two minutes before trying anything else
- ❌ Do not repeatedly mash buttons or tap the screen frantically — this rarely helps and can sometimes make things worse
- ❌ Do not attempt to open the phone or remove the battery yourself unless it is a model with a removable battery — modern phones are not designed for this
- ❌ Do not put a frozen phone in the freezer or run it under water to cool it down
- ❌ Do not assume the phone is broken and discard it — most freezes are software-related and fully recoverable
- ❌ Do not try to charge a visibly swollen phone — see the Critical warning at the top of this page
1 Force restart the phone
A force restart clears the phone’s temporary memory and shuts everything down cleanly without erasing your data. This resolves the majority of frozen phone situations.
iPhone (Face ID models / iPhone 8 and later):
Quickly press and release Volume Up → quickly press and release Volume Down → press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears, then release.
iPhone 7 / 7 Plus:
Press and hold Volume Down and the Side button together until the Apple logo appears.
iPhone 6s and earlier:
Press and hold the Home button and the Side (top) button together until the Apple logo appears.
Android (most models):
Press and hold the Power button for 10 to 30 seconds until the screen goes black and the phone restarts. Some models require holding Power + Volume Down together. If your phone has a physical Reset pinhole (check the edges of the device), inserting a straightened paperclip and pressing gently for 5 seconds will also trigger a force restart.
2 If the phone won’t force restart — charge it first
If nothing happens when you try the force restart, the battery may be too drained to respond. Connect the phone to its original charger or a known working charger and wall outlet.
- Wait at least 5 minutes — some phones need a small charge before they will respond to any button input
- After 5 minutes, try the force restart sequence again
- If a charging indicator appears on screen, the phone is receiving power — continue waiting and try again after 10 minutes
3 If the phone restarted but froze again quickly
If the phone came back on after a force restart but froze again within a few minutes, a specific app or a storage issue is likely causing the problem.
- As soon as the phone comes back on, go to Settings → Apps (Android) or Settings → General → iPhone Storage (iPhone) and check if storage is nearly full — if it is at 100%, delete some photos, videos, or unused apps immediately
- Think about whether the phone froze while using a specific app — if so, uninstall that app and see if the freezing stops
- Restart the phone normally after making changes and monitor it for 10 minutes
4 Check if the phone is overheating
If the phone feels warm or hot to the touch, overheating may have caused it to freeze as a protective measure.
- Remove any phone case to allow heat to escape
- Place the phone on a cool, flat surface — a table or countertop in a room-temperature environment
- Do not place it in a fridge or freezer — sudden temperature changes can cause condensation inside the phone and cause water damage
- Wait 10 to 15 minutes for the phone to cool down, then try the force restart again
5 Boot into Safe Mode (Android only)
Safe Mode starts Android with only the core system apps running, which helps identify if a third-party app is causing the freezing.
- Press and hold the Power button until the power menu appears on screen
- Press and hold the Power Off option on screen until a prompt appears asking if you want to reboot into Safe Mode
- Tap OK — the phone will restart and show “Safe Mode” in the bottom corner of the screen
- Use the phone for a few minutes in Safe Mode — if it does not freeze, a third-party app is the cause
- Restart normally and uninstall recently added apps one at a time until the freezing stops
6 Last resort — factory reset
iPhone:
Go to Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings and follow the prompts.
Android:
Go to Settings → General Management → Reset → Factory Data Reset and follow the prompts. The exact path may vary slightly by manufacturer.
- ✅ The phone has restarted and reached the home screen normally
- ✅ The touchscreen responds to taps and swipes without delay
- ✅ Apps open and close without the phone locking up
- ✅ The phone is not unusually warm and is holding a charge normally
If your phone continues to freeze after working through all of these steps:
- Check our Phone Not Working — Use Your PC to Fix It page to attempt a deeper restore using your PC
- Check our Physical Damage (Drops, Cracks, Impact) page if the phone was recently dropped or damaged
- Persistent freezing after a factory reset points to a hardware fault — the phone will need professional assessment
- A professional repair technician can test the phone’s memory, battery, and motherboard to identify hardware-level causes