Help! iPhone stuck in recovery mode

[su_highlight background=”#fffdc0″]Updated: February 25, 2015[/su_highlight] [su_spacer]

I had a friend reach out to me on Facebook in a panic after he somehow had gotten his iPhone 4 into a tizzy. His iPhone had gone into a strange mode and his question was simple, my iPhone stuck in recovery mode, what do I do?

Hey there.. sorry to buy you but I know you love your iPhone and might be able to help me. I was doing an update to my iPhone 4 but now its on recovery mode and it doesn’t work, it say to restore phone for it to work but says that I will lose all my data! Is there any way to get it out of recovery mode?? Help meeee!

Recovery Mode iPhone
This is what you’ll see if your iPhone goes into Recovery Mode (click to enlarge)

First off, you’re not bothering me! I love hearing about ways to fix issues – especially with an iPhone. I thought I’ve seen it all when it comes to the iPhone. That’s not the case. I’ve had my phone black out, shut off, brighten and darken, crack, make noises, not make noise at all and announce cryptic messages on the push notifications – but I’ve never had it go into recovery mode, ironically.

So I did a bit of research and found some options. Essentially, the device enters a mode called “Recovery Mode”. You’ll see a graphic on the screen that is the USB connector icon and the iTunes icon. This can happen when you attempt to upgrade the firmware on the phone (something we do rather often with Apples constant updates). Keep in mind, you can’t use the phone whatsoever when it’s in this recovery mode. You can, however, get out of it. You can restore the phone (you’ll lose your data), or you can simply turn the device on and off and that can work.

I hope these help if you run into any issues. Thanks to Salon for this good set of tips:

iPhone stuck in recovery mode…help!

Step 1

Push the “Home” button on the front and the “Sleep/Wake” button on the top of the iPhone. Hold both buttons down for a minimum of 15 seconds, or until the device turns off.

Step 2

Push the “Sleep/Wake” button again to turn the iPhone back on. If the iPhone is not in Recovery Mode, the issue is resolved. If the iPhone is in Recovery Mode, continue to Step 3.

Step 3

Start iTunes and connect the iPhone to your computer. iTunes displays a notification that it “has detected an iPhone in Recovery Mode.” Click “OK.”

Step 4

Click the iPhone icon on the left side of the iTunes window, and select the “Summary” tab on the right side of the window if is not on top already.

Step 5

Click the “Restore” button. If iTunes displays a message asking if you would like to back up the contents of the device, click the “Back Up” button to save your data. Note that this prompt may not appear when the iPhone is in Recovery Mode.

Step 6

Click the “Restore” button to confirm that you want to exit Recovery Mode by restoring the iPhone to its original factory state. The recovery may take several minutes to finish.

Step 7

Click “OK” to set your iPhone up and transfer your data back to the device after the recovery is finished.

Please leave comments on your experiences and how you were able to get out of the dreaded ‘Recovery Mode’. As time goes on, more and more problems may arise. It’s nice to hear personal stories about how you solved your phone problems.

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Still not working? Did you get an error message?

[su_highlight background=”#fffdc0″]Updated: February 25, 2015[/su_highlight] [su_spacer]

There have been a lot of questions and people having issues with error messages or when they try to finish up their restore process, it glitches out. If you notice an error number and your phone stops communicating, check this reference chart and some options to try to solve the issue. (Source: Apple)

Solve network errors

Related errors: 17, 1638, 3014, 3194, 3000, 3002, 3004, 3013, 3014, 3015, 3194, 3200, or “There was a problem downloading the software,” or “The device isn’t eligible for the requested build.” These alerts mean that your computer is either having difficulty contacting the Apple update server or communicating with your device.

Check your computer for software or settings that might cause communication issues between your computer and Apple or between your computer and your device.

 Check your security software

Related errors: 2, 4, 6, 9, 1611, 9006. Sometimes security software can stop your device from communicating with either the Apple update server or with your device.

Check your security software and settings to make sure that they aren’t blocking a connection to the Apple servers.

Check your USB connections

Related errors: 13, 14, 1600, 1601, 1602, 1603, 1604, 1611, 1643-1650, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2009, 4005, 4013, 4014, or “invalid response.”

If the USB connection between your device and computer is interrupted, you might not be able to update or restore.

To narrow down the issue, you can try different equipment:

If you still see the error message, check for hardware issues by following the next section.

Check for hardware issues

Related errors: 1, 3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 1002, 1004, 1011, 1012, 1014, 1667, or 1669.

These errors mean that your device or computer might have a hardware issue that stops the update or restore from completing.

  1. Check that your security software and settings aren’t blocking your device from communicating with the Apple update server.
  2. Then try to restore your iOS device two more times while connected with a cable, computer, and network you know are good.
  3. Make sure that your security software and settings are allowing communication between your device and update servers.
  4. If you still see the error message when you update or restore, contact Apple support.

Check for outdated or modified software

Related errors: 1015, “The required resource can’t be found.”

You might see these errors if any of these are true:

  • Your version of iTunes is out of date. Get the latest version of iTunes and try to update or restore again.
  • Your device has a beta version of iOS.
  • You’re trying to install an earlier version of iOS (downgrading).
  • Your device has unauthorized modifications to iOS, also called “jailbreaking.”

Use recovery mode to restore your device to the latest version of iOS.

Important: Information about iPhone stuck in recovery mode products is educational only. Products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple’s recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information. Josh Benson or JoshBenson.com is not liable for any attempts you make in fixing your phone. This post is for educational purposes only. 

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Did you solve it? Please leave a comment below if you need any help and I’ll try my best to help you.

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About the author

Josh Benson

155 comments

  • I have the same issue. My problem is, my phone was/is not backed-up and had not been updated in over 6 months. I wasn’t able to update because my storage space was low but yesterday I hooked it up to my computer and it tried to update. Then it went into recovery mode. I’m nervous about doing a “restore” because I don’t want to lose my info (photos, contacts, etc.) but I need to use my phone. I spent the night checking out YouTube videos on how to fix it be none worked. Some said to use “tinyumbrella” but I’m nervous about that, too, since I don’t know anything about it and am not tech savvy enough to understand exactly what they suggest to do with it- how to use it. Please help.

    • Hi there. Thanks for the comment. Sorry to hear your troubles. Did you do a hard restart first? Click the top button and home button and press and hold them together until the phone restarts. That may be enough to jar it out of Recovery Mode. If that doesn’t work it may get it to a state where you can plug it back into iTunes and do a backup. Can you get the phone back to it’s normal screen? If so, you can activate iCloud and have it do a back-up to the cloud then totally restore it and be good to go. Tiny Umbrella is generally used for JailBroken phones and later versions. What model is your phone and what iOS do you have currently installed? Keep me posted and we’ll try to get it solved for you. Thanks.

      • Hello. Thank-you so much for responding and for your assistance. I tried the hard restart- with it plugged into my PC and by itself. Each time it shows the Apple logo for about 3-5 seconds then returns to the ‘USB cable-arrow-iTunes’ screen. I haven’t been able to get it back to a normal screen yet.

        I’m not good at all with navigating the ins and outs of smart phones. I’m not even sure what iOS I have installed. This was my first one ever; I got it in September of last year. I wish I could give more detailed information but I am so out of my realm here. The only thing I know for sure is that it is an iPhone 4, 8GB. iTunes doesn’t recognize my phone other than as an iPhone that has been “detected in recovery mode” and “must be restored before connecting to iTunes” so I can’t even click on back-up in the menu. I wouldn’t mind restoring it and going back to the factory settings (since I have no music or applications on my phone) but nearly all of my memory is used on photos and I just don’t want to lose them.

        I don’t know if this is important or not but I had a notification for an update that showed up a couple months back. I couldn’t do the update because I did not have enough storage space on my phone. When I finally did hook it up to the computer, it asked if I wanted to do the update. I though “sure” and clicked yes. It took about four hours to complete what it was doing, then said there was an error and it went into this recovery mode. I don’t remember the error code though and it hasn’t displayed it since. I’m am completely dumbfounded here.

          • Hey Sir ‘ I need your help.
            My iphone is struck in a screen showing itunes and usb icon.
            and i tried all the things like pushing start and home button or restore by itunes .
            it is not going beyond this powerful error .
            Please help me how can i restore my iphone now

          • hello, I did everything listed and it got me out of recovery mode. my issue is, it reseted my whole phone ! I lost everything and it wont get me back into my phone. also, when people try to call or text it? my phone doesn’t ring or anything ! and I am getting anxiety from this.

          • I was going through these problems and i done some research of my own. I managed to solve it by uninstalling itunes and reinstalling it, making sure it is updated. Within yout computer there is a hosts file that is created from itunes to connect to there server for updating etc… you may have errors within your hosts file, removing and installing itunes will create a new hosts file containing the correct server information required. Hope this helps guys.

  • I had to restore my iPhone once from a backup, and that scared me enough into ensuring that my photos and videos are always backed up. To do this, I installed Dropbox for iPhone and set it to automatically back up my camera roll when connected to WiFi. This way, I know that all my pics are backed up. And a 100GB Dropbox account is really cheap. iCloud is also an option. So automatic backup is easy to configure. Lastly, backup your cloud backup … read this excellent post by Josh too http://joshbenson.com/why-you-should-back-up-cloud-data/ … We tend to forget to do this

  • Guys, i have been looking for a solution to get my mobile out of recovery mode. I tried almost everything, as I had very important data and contacts that were not backed up. I tired tinyumbrella, IREB, and the hard reset (home and power buttons), but nothing worked. I could get the data back by using Wondershare Dr Fone sotware. It helped me to bring the phone to DFU mode, then to copy all data from the phone to the PC. That was for me more than enough. I finally got my data back. I don’t actually care about the phone. I will restore it and try to move the backup data even one by one :). Try this software, it was the only solution for me

      • hi my daughter’s 3 gs was in recovery mode and after I read your post I downloaded the wondershare.com site. Wondershare pulled everything on her phone but at the end I would have to pay $69 to get my files. I didn’t want to pay that much so I logged out of the wondershare mode and my daughter’s phone was also NO LONGER IN RECOVERY MODE. We had full access to her phone again and I am backing it up to icloud so we don’t be in this position ever again. thanks for your help!!!

    • Ugh! my iPhone 4s crashes sometimes and it went into recovery mode! I haven’t backed my photos up in a while and I don’t want to lose them by restoring the phone so I downloaded Wondershare but it it keeps saying my phone isn’t in normal mode and to press down the power and home button but that doesn’t work either! This page is the only one i could find that came close to my problem and I’m so close to giving up!

  • hi my phone 5 went into recovery mode after i tried to restore it, i tried everything (tinyumbrella,redsn0w,) i really need help because without my phone, i cant work

  • Our iPhone 4 was acting strange (it froze up when I was trying to turn off a few apps), and I thought it would be best to restart it. I held the sleep/wake button and it turned off without giving me that sliding option to turn it off. When I powered the phone on again, I got the iTunes/USB image, and when I connect to iTunes, we get the recovery-mode message. No offers for backup, though. (Like the previous poster, our phone hasn’t been backed up in MONTHS, so we’re looking at losing a bunch of data. I feel foolish about not backing it up more often; lesson learned the hard way!) The recovery process you describe here isn’t working. I get unknown-error messages. I’ve done troubleshooting per Apple’s help pages. I’ve also tried turning the phone off and on several times, hoping for a different result. At this point, I could care less about the darn phone, I’d just like to recover our data somehow and move on! Any suggestions??

  • i got my iphone 4, 6.1.3 into dfu mode coz my 8 yr old cousin kept messing with it. but i cant get it back on using the home and power button thing. itunes cant recognize my phone either. help

  • i have the same issue with my iPhone 5, i did the home and sleep button at the same time but after i was using my iPhone, it went on recovery mode again. i never backed up my iPhone so I’m worried when i restore it will lose and erase everything especially my photos which I’m rally worried about. is there any way you can help me? please. I’m looking for a way to save all my stuff and when i restore have my photos there.

    • You need to plug it into iTunes and back it up if you can’t access the cloud and make a backup. Lesson here is always back up! But I understand your concern. Another option is to download iExplorer, plug in the phone and perform a backup by dragging and dropping or using the softwares backup system. Good luck

  • hello, i have the same problem but even after restoring it my iPhone stills in recovery mode i don’t know what to do. thanks for your help

  • hi my problem is that when i was trying to update my iphone 4s it went into a recovery loop and now it wont get out i tryed restoring but it gets errors

  • Hello,

    I have a iphone 3g and I have tried all the button pushing, host edits, and tiny umbrella software tips that are out there and still i am in a recovery loop.

  • worsed advise ever! what you did is follow the instructions on iTunes! this is not the problem unless you are completely computer illiterate!

  • just got my iphone 4 into recovery mode after downloading 7.0.4 an i tried everything including home button an power button about 10 times an it didnt work until i downloaded wondershare. all i had to do was click put in normal mode and it fixed my problem. Thank you so much!!!!!

  • I had the problem with my iphone 5 and didnt think i backed anything up but appareantly itunes backs everything up for you anyway.. I donwloaded wondershare and i was going to use that after ive restored my phone but when i restored it, it gave me the option to back up the stuff from itunes and i got all my stuff back!!! so dont be affraid and see if that’ll work for you.. You can still use wondershare afterwards so good luck to everyone else

  • HELP! MY iPhone 4 is on recovery mode while i’m updating to IOS 7.0.4 , i jailbreak my iPhone 4 on iOS 5.1.1 before updating to that new version of IOS and it goes to the recovery mode, and then when i plug in to my computer the recovery mode (itunes logo) is gone the always restarting to the recovery mode again 🙁 help me :'(

  • my iphone 3gs is stuck on the apple logo, ive already restored my iphone using iTunes, but when this is complete a message pops up saying that my phone is restarting and it may take a few minutes. after a few minutes of waiting my iphone turns itself off, I have done this 3 or 4 times now but nothing has changed, could someone help?

  • what do you do if recovery mode isnt working? i forgot the password and am trying to clear it but its not working.

  • Im stuck on recovery mode, have tried restoring about 9 times, but about a third of the way through a message pops up saying “Error 23” What can i do to fix this?? I need my phone for work phone calls!

  • My mom gave me her iPhone 3GS and she told me I can’t use it until she gets the pictures off of it and it is in recovery mode so we can’t get to the pictures or anything else but when I take out the SIM card it comes back out of recovery mode. What could be my problem?

  • Hi! So I went to update my jailbroken iphone 5 to ios 7, the update failed, and like alot of others, is now only giving me the option to restore and update, I saved most of my pictures, but not alot of important ones 🙁 I tried doing a hard reset, no luck, tried wondershare, simply goes to apple icon, 2x then back to the black screen with the cable connecting to itunes. Im hoping you are still around to help a girl out ! thank you 🙂

  • please help i cant find a solution for this anywhere my iphone 3gs battery stopped working so i replaced it now it starts up in recovery mode when i try to restore iphone it says not enough space and that i should remove some apps or empty recycle bin but when i try to access it, it says i need to restore it first or it wont work. I tried accessing it from my pc without itunes to remove my pictures see if that helps but it doensn’t connect to my iphone like norrmally it just says its in recovery mode and needs to be restored but then i cant restore

  • I know this is basically all stupidity on my husbands part, but he downloaded the IOS 8.0 upgrade half way and then hit cancel. Now his phone is stuck on a black screen with the iTunes logo saying plug into ITunes. When plugged into iTunes it says the phone is detected in recovery mode, the only option is to restore to factory setting. He has NEVER once backed up his phone and has never signed up for Icloud!!! Theres 1000 pictures on there of our kids from the time our daughter was a baby! Is there any chance at all to try and get this phone out of recovery mode without restoring to factory settings???

    • Yikes. Did you ever solve this issue? You should be able to plug into iTunes and run a backup before you restore. Then once restore, load the backup. Let me know how it goes.

  • my phone keeps going into recovery everyday. Ive done this steps a million times and ir keps repeating. im using iphone4

  • If anyone is having trouble with restoring it like I did because iTunes couldn’t find your iPhone or the iTunes logo and cable wont go after holding down the bottons with the phone plugged in, try this way. I took my cable out of the right hand side slot and fitted it into the ones on the opposite side. There should be two and you have to try both to see what works. When doing this iTunes should locate the phone and ask you to restore and update or update. Click restore and update and leave it then it will sort itself out! This has worked for me three times now, with three different iPhones. I hope this helps everyone else out!

  • My phone just started going to the activation screen I can activate it and in about 60 seconds it takes me right bk where I have to enter my email and password. What can I do?

  • Hope you can help me. iPhone 4 problem. All of a sudden I can’t click onto anything in my photos. I can import a photo to a message only but can not click on any to view or delete them. So frustrating, don’t know what to do

    • Hi Sue. When was the last time you shut the phone off? The best thing to try is press and hold the home button and the top or side button (depending on version of phone). Press them and hold them together until the phone restarts and you see the apple logo. This is hard restart. It fixes 90% of problems.

  • Thank you so much!! I am so relieved that this worked!! I was panicking so much when my phone wouldn’t turn back on but it’s back! Thank you!!!!

  • Josh I really need your help, I came from work and my phone deaded on me so I went to get my charger and I plugged it with my iPhone and than the I tunes mgs came up , Ihave over 7000 pictures of family and trips I went on that means the world to me, I will even pay you if I can just get in my phone and use it, I have noting saved … Pizza help me

    • Hi Anita. Sorry to hear the news. Walk me through what happened with more detail. What version phone? iPhone 4? 5? S or C? What does the charger look like that you’re using? First thing you should do is unplug it and press the home button and the other button and hold the pressed until the phone restarts. Try that and let me know.

    • Anita: Got your other messages. What you should do is plug your phone into iTunes and it will want you to restore. But first make SURE you have it do a backup. That way it’ll take everything on your phone and store it on your computer. Then go ahead and do the full restore. Then load the backup you saved previously. Then all your images, data, etc. will be added back to the phone. Once you’ve done all that. SET UP ICLOUD and make sure it’s doing automatic backups so you never have this issue again. (: Good luck.

  • Hi Steve: Sorry for the late response. Were these actual text messages or iMessages? If the latter, it would be stored and you will see them/receive them if you have the iMessages set to save for longer than a month and you haven’t deleted them on any other device. If text message that can become quirky because it’s done through your cellular provider and a quick call to them may solve it. Good luck.

  • hey so i have an iphone4s and it was on the ios6 update and i decided i would update and restore it so i could pass it down to my brother but when i connected it to itunes to restore and update it got about halfway through with the white loading line under the apple symbol and then stopped and on itunes it popped up with a message saying error 1 and i have tried to restore and update and get out of recovery mode on my other computer as well but the same error 1 code pops up…. i need help really fast and badly has its stuck in recovery mode and i need to pass it on to my brother asap!

  • Hey Ben I have my Iphone 3g on recovery mode and i just bought it and tried to update it. But now itz stuck on recory mode. I fixed it once and again it broke.Its been 3 months since it broke again.Now on recovery mode and when i try to restore by itunes it show “The iphone could not be recovered.An unknown error occured(23). Please a liitle help ‘ll be taken gratefully

  • Hi, I was just wondering, could you do a video with you doing the steps? I just bought an IPhone 3GS from one of my friends, and she had reset it before she gave it to me. It’s on recovery mode. And I can’t understand the steps. Thanks!

  • Hiya i dropped my iphone 5c it didnt smash or anything but when i picked it up it wouldnt turn on, but had like a slight dark blue screen and if you rang it, it would ring but you couldnt hear it or see the call come through. I then plugged it into the usb connected to the computer to try back it up as i dont want to loose anything and it kept vibrating non stop and wouldnt let me back it up….do you know what could be wrong with it and could i save my data even though my phone wont turn on? Please get back to me asap

  • Does it have to be my computer with my itunes? My computer is broke and i have an iphone 5 with all my music that i dont want to lose off of it. Can i just plug it into my friends computer with their itunes open? thanks.

    • Hi Amber. If you can, set up your iCloud account and do a back up (they give you enough free space to back it up most times). Once you do a iCloud backup, you’ll be able to restore it and automatically back it up with just the phone. But yes, if you need to use a friends computer, you can – but you’ll want to create a new user on laptop and then log into that user or else you’ll be replacing all your data with theirs. You don’t want that. (: Good luck.

  • thank you for your blog. I did the “restoring iPhone” because of forgotten passcode over resetting/erasing iPhone 4’s data/s then got me stuck-up with DFU mode. After refreshing my PC and did again the restore at last it says ” Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.” and now my iPhone is working all fine. No more headache’s with forgotten passcode. Than you, uou help me a lot.

  • Hi Josh, I woke up in the middle of the night to few my newborn baby to find my phone stuck in the blak screen with apple logo. I tried various things including on and off and plugging in the machine and trying to update to see if that would work. The phone is now stuck in DFU MODE with the white cable with iTunes logo. I have all my photos of my baby on the phone which I don’t want to lose. We can’t get it out of the DFU mode to use 3rd party software to retrieve the photos. Any ideas of how to get it out? I would be forever grateful if you could help! Thanks Stephanie

    • Sorry to hear the problems AND no sleep with a newborn! DFU mode stands for Device Firmware Upgrade and it allows you all devices to be restored from any state. You an restore from this mode (JUST BACKUP) your data first and you should be good to go. Good luck.

      Enter DFU mode

      Hold the Power Button (3 secs)

      Continue holding the power button and also hold the home button (15 secs) Release the power button while continuing to hold the home button (10 secs) Your device should prompt with the “Connect to iTunes Screen”

      Second: Plug it into your computer and open iTunes. It will either prompt to restore and up date or you can manually restore using the following steps.

      IOS Restore StepsBefore restoring: Verify that you are using the latest version of iTunes. Back up your device. Transfer and sync content to your computer.

      Restoring your iOS device

      Connect your device to your computer. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when it appears in iTunes. Select the Summary tab, and click the Restore button.

      Click Restore.

      After a restore, the iOS device restarts. You should then see “Slide to set up”. Follow the steps in the iOS Setup Assistant. If needed, restore your device from a previous backup.

      (h/t Jason Louie for this tutorial)

  • I followed all of the steps given but when my iPhone 4 got to the point where it was verifying the software a message popped up on my iTunes. The phone’s progress bar stopped and iTunes no longer is reading the phone. See below. Please help.

  • I have a question is there a way to by pass restoring my iPhone because i have important information on there that i need to access now, and if i restore my phone i will lose everything

    • Yes, you can hard restart it as I mentioned. Or plug it into iTunes and back it up and do a restore and then load the backup back on the phone. It will ask you these steps when you click on restore to back it up first. Then you won’t lose anything.

  • Hello, I m using 5s with iOS 8.1.3 updated two weeks before, 3 days before its started restarting by itself then suddenly powered off, I tryed hard reset etc but couldn’t work etc and didn’t power on again, at last I connected with iTunes on PC detected iphone, shows recovery mode, and tried to restore but didn’t complete installation and frozen, I m unable to understand whether it is s/w or hardware problem I m not sure about it, I need your help so that I could recover my phone, waiting for your prompt response with fruitful tips and solution to get rid off this problem, thanks , ajaz

    • Hi Ajaz: Is this a factory Apple phone and/or is it jailbroken? Sounds like a bad phone. You may use the warranty to get a new one if possible. I would ensure your laptop is restarted, iTunes is updated, and try connecting and do a a restore. Should give you an error code if it glitches out on restore. Good luck.

      • Thanks for reply, its factory unlock, no warranty , no error code just got stuck while recovery, still iTunes detect and recovery mode but shows no display, kindly tell me possible step to get rid off this situation, thanks

  • I found code error 40 while restoring from recovery mode, tried everything doesn’t work, my question is whether this hardware issue is recoverable and what could be hardware failure IC etc, can u point out few hardware points where failure might occurred or damaged, waiting for early response , thanks

  • My aunt who is 94 and legally blind insisted on getting an iPhone because they supposed have the best apps for the visually impaired/blind. Well it was always a nightmare, I think just because my aunt was unable to do things correctly. Anyway, I have the phone, I think it’s an iPhone 5, and it’s just been sitting in a drawer for months because I can’t get it to turn on. I successfully unlocked it through AT&T, restored it to factory settings, etc. But now it won’t turn on no matter how long I charge it. I’ve tried holding down the power and home button and all those suggestions. When I plug it into my pc iTunes tells me that it is in recovery mode and needs to be restored. When I click on Restore it simply sits there saying that iTunes is restoring the software on the phone but up at the very top it says preparing phone for restore. But it never does anything and I’ve left it for a couple of hours. I would really like to get this phone in working order so I can sell it for my aunt and she can get back some of the money she wasted on it. Thank you.

  • my Iphone 6 is also stuck in recovery mode but iTunes won’t even recognize it, when I plug it in, the phone doesn’t even show up in iTunes. If only I could just get itunes to recognize my phone I can fix it. Think you can help me with that?

    • Nvm I got it. It was just my computer’s problem. I fixed it when I connected it to my mom’s Mac. This article was really helpful! Thanks!

  • My iPhone 5c is stuck in recovery mode and won’t turn on.
    I cracked the screen several months ago but it has been working well until now.
    I have tried charging my phone, checking for water damage and holding the home and lock buttons and nothing is working. However, when I connect my phone to my laptop it connects to iTunes and it told me I need to restore my iPhone but I can’t back up my files through iTunes because I can’t enter my pass code on to my phone so that it can access them because it won’t turn on.

    What should I do?

  • my iphone 5c 3 days ago randomly turned off and i just thought it was flat so i put it on charge over night but the next morning when i tried turning it on it wouldnt turn on and it started to vibrate so i took it off charge and it stopped. iv tried plugging it into my computer and restoring it but it wont let me because my phone is locked and i need to get into my phone and unlock it and it still isnt turning on. iv tried holding the off and home button and it still wont work what should i do?

  • Hi there, I have had the same thing with my iPhone 4S. I have tried the reset, by holding down the home key and power. When it comes back on it has the connect to iTunes. There are two options, one is update and one is restore. I have tried both options and keep on getting an error, something USB, can’t remember, none of them work, now the phone seems to be completely out of action. I don’t know what else to try. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I need my phone for work

  • Hi I dropped my iPhone five and now it either wont swith on or keeps flashing the apple logo, I’ve plugged it into my laptop and tried up dating it and it’s saying error 21 and I haven’t back my phone up so I don’t want to click restore is there anyway you can back up your flies even tho you can’t do anything on the phone?

  • phone 5 will not go past the “connect to itunes logo”. When i do connect to itunes on a windows 7 pc, it asks me to update or recover the phone. When i press “update” to update the ios on the phone…itunes errors out with error “27” trying to “something” with the phone.

    Apple is just suggesting to restore to factory settings…:( which will delete everything on the phone. My last backup is too old — 3 months.

    Appreciate your help.

    • this and other processes from other sites, the trick was in removing SIM card, then proceeding with restore. Once phone is restored, you can insert the SIM card! This thanks to info provided by “Jinsanity” in an apple discussion.

  • I try doing a hard reset but when it’s loading on my computer probably missing about 20 mins the iPad turns back on by itself and I have to restart again..help I don’t know what else to do..

      • I updated ios on the 5 because it wouldn’t let me back up. Once backed up I tried to restore the info from 5 into the 6. Again wouldn’t let me proceed until i updated 6. That’s where it got stuck. Just solved by removing SIM and leaving out while restoring. Yeh! Thsnks!!!

        • Good for you!….you said “it wouldn’t let me back up. Once backed up….”

          So how did you back your iphone 5 when it was stuck in the connect to itunes logo”?….appreciate your help

  • Solved it!!! After trying this and other processes from other sites, the trick was in removing SIM card, then proceeding with restore. Once phone is restored, you can insert the SIM card! This thanks to info provided by “Jinsanity” in an apple discussion.

    • I have a iPhone 5c and it randomly crashed about a week ago while going on instagram. And now ever since then it has been stuck on an annoying ass recovery mode loop and i’m still not giving in to restoring because I haven’t backed up in MONTHS. I literally breathed the data that was on my iPhone. and yeah I’m more than aware that backing up is important BUT I couldn’t back up in the first place because I didn’t have enough storage space to begin with so yeah.
      any way I took out my SIM card and I need to know if you still have all your data from taking it out after restoring. Thanks

  • If you have tried many times but still fialed to fix iPhone stuck in recovery mode, I think you’d better use a software to help you out! I mean if you know which software can solve this problem, then you can save a lot of energy and time. A software called iPhone Data Recovery can not only help you exit iPhone stuck in recovery mode , but also can help you recover lost data on iPhone. I’ve used this software for like a thousand times, it works well all the time.

    Hope this can help!

  • Hope you can help me . My iphone 5 keeps going into recovery mode even after restoring its driving me crazy .

    • Same problem. Restore and works for a day, then back to apple logo and need to restore again….

  • i have a message “iphone could not be restored unknown error (1015)” but after i downloaded ipsw it again show a message “iphone could not be restored because the frimware file is compatble”

  • I have a problem. I am stuck on the Connect to Itunes Screen. EVen opened Itunes but the Detected Pop Up Did not show neither did I receive any Press to OK Button to Restore notification. What do I do??? Please help

  • I posted it in some other similar threads today and have had three people reply that it worked for them too, and nobody so far saying it hasn’t worked with FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery. And yes, everything was still on my iPad; contacts, web bookmarks, all photos, nothing was changed. It just didn’t update to iOS 8. After I got it working again I just used Wi-Fi and upgraded to iOS 8 over the air with no problems, using it as I type this. If you’re still stuck, trying this will not endanger anything at all on your device. Worth a try at least, and I’m guessing it’ll work for you to recover lost data of iPhone stuck in recovery mode.

    Good luck!

  • My iPhone stuck in recovery mode after iOS update so i searched google for help. To my surprise, i got a free tool to enter and exit iPhone recovery mode without holding home or power button, you just need to click the button on the main interface to choose to put iPhone into or out of recovery mode with one click.

  • The following will work for you to recover lost data of iPhone stuck in recovery mode.
    Solution 1 : Turn off your device , then turn back on and everything should be fine.

    Solution 2 :
    1. Plug your device into a PC or a MAC then iTunes should detect your device is in recovery mode and release you from recovery mode.
    2. ITUNES will automatically pick it up and a pop up box will probally say that your IPHONE is in recovery mode would you like to restore?
    3. Click the restore tab.
    Note – If ITUNES if out of date, this will not work.
    Note – Do not do this over WIFI
    Note – Do not interrupt the restore
    Note – If you did not make a previous back up, your iPhone will restore back to the factory settings.

    Solution 3 : RESTORE, your iPhone

    Solution 4: Press and hold the power button for 5 secs , press and hold the home button and release the power button. Now press the power button and the home button for 10 secs.

    Hope FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery helps!

  • Hi, my iphone 6 is automatically turned off since yesterday morning and it has not been turned on since then. I tried to connect with the itunes and restore ; it says the phone is in recovery mode. However, I am not able to restore my phone and it has no sign..the phone is completely dead. I tried with all the options mentioned here, but nothing seems to help me resolve this problem. Please, help me!!

  • Have you tried to put iPhone in DFU mode? It can be applied to exit iPhone recovery mode I heard.
    You can have a try on iPhone Data Recovery too if you like, it can help users fix this issue in two methods.
    See more : How to Fix iPhone Stuck in Recovery Mode?

  • Mine is doing this. But after I plug into itunes it updates have way and freezes again! I have rebooted computer and iphone 6. It keeps occuring. (-18) error message.
    HELP!

  • My iPhone is stuck in the apple logo and won’t do anything or go anywhere else, I have tried many things that I’ve seen but none work. I have even tried to restore it but my mac won’t recognize my iPhone. I don’t know what to do anymore! Will it work?

  • i can get on to selecting restore iphone and it goes through the first two steps, but after itunes says ‘preparing the iphone for restore’ i hear the disconnected sound. sometimes it’ll reconnect but itunes stays on the ‘waiting for iphone’ bit and then gives up after about 5 minutes D:

  • Coolmuster iPhone Data Recovery will assist you to restore data from iPhone. With the powerful tool, you can get your lost data from iCloud and iTunes backup.

  • My iPhone 6 is stuck on restore mode and every time it attempts to update the update crashes and asks me to update or restore again. I never backed up my iPhone 6 so there is a lot of stuff on my phone I do not want deleted…. Is there any way out of this? I don’t care about the update anymore I just want to use my phone 🙁

  • my i pad is in disable mood but i tried to restore it and the itunes shows a msg that “the i pad software update server could not be contracted.the network connection was refused.”

  • Upon attempting to restore my iPhone 6Plus (iOs 9.3.5) after receiving a new unit on warranty, the restore stopped. About a year’s worth of my oldest photos did not restore. I have seen various offers that purport to allow one to get into a backup on the cloud to individually select and transfer photos or other files. However all such software appears to come from China, and that worries me.

    How do I complete the stalled restore?

    thanks
    ( I realize I could store the photos individually on the cloud, but I haven’t done that yet, so answers to that effect, while appreciated, are not helpful in this situation.)

  • I haven’t previously connected my iPhone 6 to iTunes, tried to do an update, it got stuck so pressed home/off button thinking it would cancel it and now it’s stuck on the connect to iTunes screen. I’ve tried doing the update through iTunes and it doesn’t work… I need to be able to use this phone… any ideas? Please let me know. Thanks.

  • So, I recently had my screen replaced and a few days after started getting random small black vertical lines in the middle of my screen. This went on for a few weeks and I would randomly get more. Then, one day I had my phone sitting on the counter to fix my daughter breakfast and looked over and I saw the screen flashing black and white like crazy! My screen then turned somewhat black but, I could see some things in a negative color. Night shift was off and has never been turned on. Phome has never been dropped. Now, randomly, once a day for just a couple of minutes my screen will go back to normal and then go right back to the sort of black screen. I can still use it when i can see or use Siri to make a call. A few days ago i tried to completely restore the phone in settigs after multiple attempts to hard reset it using the Home and power buttons. Now, it’s randomly popping up with the itunes restore like pictured above. Did I somehow get a defective screen? Is there a way to fix this or do I need to replace the screen again or just replace the phone? I can’t seem to find anything on what is happening to my phone (minus the apple restore screen & black vertical lines). HELP PLEASE!!!

  • i have iphone 6 disabled when i connect to itunes i get restore message when i start restoring after few minutes the phone starts but still get disable message

  • my iPhone is stuck in recovery. ive tried everything DFU and even a phone shop and nothing.. I’m totally mystified.. Can someone help me with this I cant afford drfone etc..

  • Thanks for sharing. Will bookmark/keep this page handy for future reference! Now sharing here some tips if you’re using an iMac and you need to recover deleted or lost data. Deleted, lost, or corrupted file on an iMac may seem like a big problem. However, the issue is not a big deal when you use a reliable Mac recovery program. If a recent unexpected incident has resulted in loss of information, involuntarily removed files, or hard drive reformatting, then an iMac file retrieval program is the fastest, most reliable option for salvaging files.

    If you are in dire need of a quick solution for retrieving files on your IMac hard drive, then Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery software is your first line of defense. For example, a file is accidentally moved into trash and then the trash is emptied before you realized it had made its way there. Don’t assume the information is gone, as an iMac file recovery utility is capable of getting it back before you can even bat an eye. Simply follow the link to know more.

  • Thanks for sharing. Will bookmark/keep this page handy for future reference! Now sharing here some tips if you’re using an iMac and you need to recover deleted or lost data. Deleted, lost, or corrupted file on an iMac may seem like a big problem. However, the issue is not a big deal when you use a reliable Mac recovery program. If a recent unexpected incident has resulted in loss of information, involuntarily removed files, or hard drive reformatting, then an iMac file retrieval program is the fastest, most reliable option for salvaging files.

    If you are in dire need of a quick solution for retrieving files on your IMac hard drive, then Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery software is your first line of defense. For example, a file is accidentally moved into trash and then the trash is emptied before you realized it had made its way there. Don’t assume the information is gone, as an iMac file recovery utility is capable of getting it back before you can even bat an eye. Simply follow the link to know more.

  • Thanks for your share. And you really shared many methods to fix stuck on this mode. About iPhone stuck in Recovery Mode, I have something to add. Using iTunes to fix is a good way. We can use TunesKit iOS System Recovery to fix and no data loss will be caused by it.

Josh Benson

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