The iPhone 6 is the most popular model on the market, with a 30% market share. Using both the recovery mode and the safe mode on your iPhone 6 can be extremely useful for getting rid of many of the common problems experienced by users. The latest issue is updating to the newest firmware.
This comes in the form of your computer or iTunes failing to recognize your device. The Apple logo will remain on the screen and the progress bar won’t move anywhere. This is the main sign that you need to enter recovery mode to get your device working again. In this tutorial, you will find out how to begin fixing your iPhone.
Step 1 – Starting to Enter Recovery Mode
To start with, you need to power down by holding the power button. Even in this state, you still have the option to turn your device off. Hold it down until the slider comes up and then swipe right to turn it off. Once it’s off, you need to plug it into the computer with the correct USB cord that came with the phone.
Make sure that the computer you are using already has iTunes installed. As you do this, make sure you are holding down the Home button. This should bring up the option to connect to the iTunes screen.
Step 2 – Reaching Recovery Mode
Once you have reached the iTunes store, you can stop holding the Home button. If this doesn’t work, start from the beginning of the tutorial and try again. Sometimes it takes a few tries for it to actually work.
After iTunes opens, you will receive a message that says it recognizes some sort of mobile device. This means that you can now use iTunes to restore your device. This is often the only way you can get your data back. But if you backed up your iPhone using the cloud, you may be able to restore from one of these backups. Once you have restored, you can exit recovery mode.
Step 3 – Remove Bad Updates
Safe mode is another type of mode you can use to save your device. This mode was brought in so people could restore their devices without destroying everything. It’s also a way to avoid bad themes or apps from destroying the internal software, which is known as ‘Bricking’. It meant the device was completely broken and you had to buy a new one.
Safe mode is a crash cycle that allows you to disable all themes and tweaks. This way you can manually remove any offending items that could have led to the crash.
Since most bricking issues happen with the update installed previously, you can run safe mode and just undo the last update.
Step 4 – Manually Entering Safe Mode
Power off the device and power it back on again. When the device lights up, you should press and hold the up volume button. Do this until you see the Apple logo. This is the sign that when you next unlock the device it will be in safe mode. Now all you have to do is simply uninstall the last update as you would uninstall anything else.
Step 5 – Hard Restart
To exit safe mode, you must perform a hard restart. Hold the power and home button down together until the iPhone switches itself off and restarts. This will happen with one press and hold, so don’t stop once the device is switched off.
Make sure you ignore the unlocking slide. Once the phone has completely restarted, you will be off safe mode and back onto normal mode. If all has gone well, your iPhone should be back in the right condition.
What About if None of this Works?
There are some errors that can’t be resolved using safe mode. Thankfully, there are few and far between and will rarely happen to you. In this case, your only option may be to enter recovery mode, as detailed earlier in this tutorial. In this case, you will have to either reset the device entirely or restore from an earlier access point.
Even so, there are still some rare scenarios where recovery mode will fail to work. Unfortunately, at this point the issues open to you are relatively few. Take your iPhone to a repair specialist. Make sure that they are an official repair specialist because otherwise this will void your warranty, even if they happen to fix the problem.
As you can see, the vast majority of issues can be resolved with either of these two modes. What issues have you encountered with your iPhone 6?
I cover the art of using smart, simple shortcuts that lead to growth.
I am a regular writer for Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Media (among others), as well as CEO and Chairman of Alumnify Inc. Proud alum from 500 Startups and The University of San Diego. Follow me on Twitter @