How To: Turn off your iPhone when the Power button isn’t working

Any hardware button can break or malfunction, especially those which are used often. If the Sleep/Wake button of your iPhone isn’t working properly (or at all) anymore, it’s understandable how you might be confused as to how you could power down your phone.

Luckily, this can be done without using the physical button and it’s not a difficult task either.

To do this, you’ll have to rely on the AssistiveTouch function which you can enable in your phone’s Settings app under General -> Accesibility -> AssistiveTouch. 

To be able to power off your phone using AssistiveTouch, make sure the Device icon is available in the menu (like in the image above). Otherwise, go ahead and tap on “Customize Top Level Menu“. There you can change existing icons or add new ones. Whichever method you choose, make sure to add Device in the icons list.

Alternatively you can just use the “Reset” option to restore the AssistiveTouch menu to its default state, which includes the Device icon.

The next step is optional and it allows you to customize the AssistiveTouch menu so you can quickly access the power down option. You’ll find it very useful, especially if you can’t or don’t plan on fixing your iPhone’s broken power off button and an upgrade is not possible either.

If you use the Lock Screen icon instead of Device you can power off your phone even faster. For an even faster way to power down your iPhone, instead of using Device, select the Lock Screen icon instead.

Now it’s finally the time to use the AssistiveTouch menu to power off your phone so double tap on the circular icon to expand it. If you previously customized it with the Device option, tap on it and in the following menu tap and hold on Lock Screen. This will display the “slide to power off” option.

If you followed our recommendation and customized the AssistiveTouch menu with the Lock Screen option, simply use it and you’ll be taken to the “slide to power off” option directly.

Note: Restarting your phone without using the power button is also possible via a simple trick. Go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility and toggle the Bold Text option on (or off if it was already enabled). This setting needs a system restart in order to be changed and you’ll be prompted to allow this action on the following screen. Hit Continue and your iPhone will automatically restart.

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