Here’s How Often You Should Shut Down Your iPhone (and Why)

Smartphones don’t need to rest often, but periodically shutting them down and restarting them could benefit your iPhone.

Most of us probably try restarting or hard resetting our iPhones when there’s a problem — like apps freezing up or crashing. And that’s exactly what you should do in these situations since a hard reboot can clear up many bugs and issues without any other actions.

But beyond doing it when your iPhone is acting weird, restarting your device every now and then could help prevent these issues in advance.

Many users report that their iPhones run smoother and quicker after a restart. That includes general performance, as well as animation and app loading times.

Presumably, this is because restarting an iPhone will refresh the device’s memory and clear its cache. While iOS does a great job at managing memory on its own, a simple refresh could help give it a cleaner slate to work from.

On the other hand, restarting your iPhone isn’t going to have much of an effect on your battery life. It’s really the apps you use and how often you use them that will have an impact on how long your iPhone stays charged.

If you’re worried about battery life, it’s much more effective to switch off Background App Refresh and Location Services for non-necessary apps.

There’s also another reason to periodically restart or shut down your device: digital wellbeing. We could all stand to spend a bit less time on our iPhones, and the minute or so it takes for a device to fully reboot is a good starting point. Better yet, turn it off and spend some time screen-less.

While the jury is out on how often you’ll want to power down your iPhone, giving it a quick refresh once a week has proven to be effective for many users.

As far as how to restart your iPhone, there are a couple of options. You can force restart it, though the exact method varies depending on which model of iPhone you have.

Alternatively, you can simply turn off your iPhone and turn it back on again. Regardless of the iPhone model, there’s an easy Shut Down button in newer versions of iOS.

1. Settings.
2. General.
3. Find Shut Down at the bottom of the menu.
4. Slide to Power Off.
5. After it’s off, just hold down the Side button or the Sleep/Wake button to power it back on.

So how often should users shut down their iPhones? The answer is simple – if you’re questioning that your device should be running faster, shut it down and restart.