Summary: Facing overheating of iPhone? Getting warning message, ‘iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it’. This post shares the causes, immediate measures to be taken, and the best ways to fix overheating issue in iPhone.
A lot of iPhone users are disappointed by the issue of overheating. Reports from around the world are pouring in with complaints about the overheating of various iPhone models to an extent of warning message, ‘iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it’ and even explosion.
Obviously, the Apple brand is looked up as analogous to high quality. But the bitter truth is that Apple too is not immune from the technical glitches.
So how to fix the issue?
This article deals with the causes, immediate measures to be taken, and the fixes for the overheating issue in iPhone.
What happens when your iPhone gets overheated?
The impact of overheating iPhone varies in its severity. Sometimes the phone gets too hot to touch and won’t cool down even after placing in a freezer! Overheating during the use can lead to serious functional problems in the iPhone. The device might get shut down, become unresponsive or very slow.
It is found that the iPhone gets extremely hot while performing activities that put heavy pressure on CPU, battery or GPU. Thus, mostly working on intensive applications like Waves, Google Maps, Facebook videos, Safari, or playing 3-D games, etc., for a long time can result in overheating.
iPhones are designed to work at temperatures ranging 0ºC to 35ºC. When put to stress iPhone too generates heat like other machines, which is normal. But if your phone remains hot most of the time or gets overheated especially when put under immense operational pressure, this could be a serious problem.
How to cool down hot or overheated iPhone?
Once you find your iPhone getting hot take it to a cooler environment. Say, if the device is in scorching sunlight move it to a shade and wait for few minutes to gradually dissipate the heat. If your iPhone continues to remain too hot to touch, immediately do the following, as per your situation:
- Remove the iPhone from its case.
- Switch off for sometime.
- Do not charge or stop charging, if you are already doing so.
- Keep the iPhone away from sunlight.
- Do not leave the iPhone in the car as the temperature rises fast in parked cars.
- Stop doing CPU intensive activities like GPS navigation, playing graphics-intensive games, sharing heavy video files on chats, or watching movies on your iPhone etc.
- Stop using Bluetooth.
- Turn on Airplane mode.
- Check your charging cables to ensure you are using Apple cable.
| CAUTION NOTE: Never put your too hot to touch iPhone in a freezer, refrigerator or in front of air conditioners to cool off. The sudden change in temperature along with moisture in such environment can damage the internal components of the device. |
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If these immediate steps do not reduce the temperature of the iPhone, deeper troubleshooting is required to solve overheating iPhone problem.
Methods to fix overheating iPhone ProblemMethod 1: Withdraw recent software permissions. Method 2: Do not play games for longer period. Method 3: Update iOS. Method 4: Do ‘Reset All Settings’ on iPhone. |
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Method 1: Withdraw recent software permissions
Background Refresh automatically refreshes your installed apps in the background. In situations of overheated iPhone or battery, it is advisable to turn off background refresh. You can selectively stop background refresh for not much used or unimportant applications to prevent your phone getting overheated. It is advisable to quit all apps and wait for some time until the iPhone starts to cool down.
Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
Method 2: Do not play games for a longer period
Games are addictive but playing them for longer duration overuses the device CPU and battery, turning it hot. Avoid playing graphic-intensive games on iPhone for long durations to prevent overheating of iPhone.
Method 3: Update iOS
Updating the iOS can also help you overcome the problem of iPhone getting hot.
Go to Settings > General > Software Updates > Download and install the update available.
Post the iOS update, it is normal for the iPhone to remain hot for a while, especially when plugged-in overnight.
Method 4: Do ‘Reset All Settings’
If the iOS update too fails to resolve iPhone overheating problem, try to ‘Reset All Settings’ on your iPhone. This does not delete saved data like emails, texts, videos, music, photos etc., but only removes personal preferences for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Privacy, General, Sounds, Brightness, Wallpaper, and Notifications.
Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. Next enter the Apple passcode and the iPhone starts to reboot.
| CAUTION NOTE: Before performing Reset All Settings on your iPhone note down your Wi-Fi passwords, network configurations, and preferred settings that you would lose after the procedure, for future use. |
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The Bottom Line…
As soon as you discover the iPhone overheating issue, stop the heavy data usage and CPU intensive activities to reduce the stress on the device. Protect your phone from sunlight and other heat generating environments. Finally, follow the above-mentioned methods to maintain the normal temperature and fix the overheating iPhone issue.
Remember to backup your iPhone data before troubleshooting your device as you might lose your iPhone data. In case you face some kind of data loss while troubleshooting, use Stellar Data Recovery for iPhone.
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Hello, Thanks a lot,
I have an overheating issue with my iPhone 5s. It was overheating continuously after doing the above steps, I opened it and disabled the battery connection as I was scared it could explode.
it instantly starts heating up the moment I connect back the battery even when the iPhone is off.
Please help me.
Hi MD, we provides useful methods to fix overheating iPhone problem in our blog you can read and fix this issue!
Besides the above methods, you can also restart your iPhone. also, you can check the battery use and background apps. Moreover, deleting unwanted apps is also preferrable. Of course, the best way to fix iPhone overheating is using the professional iOS system recovery tools like this passage tells, for example, stellar and TunesKit.
Thanks Larence!
I had an issue on my iPhone 7 in the past few days, when I play a game on my iPhone or opening some apps freezing and hanging issue occurred my phone. What possible solutions to fix this?
Dear Fazel, I suggest to you, Please update the latest iOS on your iPhone. If the issue will the same contact the nearest Apple store. Thanks!
I had an issue with my iPhone 5s overheating and battery drain issue. Could you give me some advice what should I do?
Hi Russell, if your iPhone is under warranty or 3 years old. It may need a new battery make an appointment at Apple store for checking or contact Support.apple.com.
I had a problem with my iPhone 6S overheating also when turned off. I found your blog and fix the overheating problem. After following the ways as you mentioned in this post. Thank you very much for giving such a useful information!
Hi Kenneth, Thanks for reading our blog and keep watching for next update!
I had using my iPhone for more than 1 years, but now it has started giving error, as it shuts down automatically and overheated. There can be many things that can result in malfunctioning of my iPhone, so I consulted stellar data recovery to know the reason. The specialists helped me a lot. Now the device working fine! Thanks.
Hi Tamara, Thanks for your feedback!!
Great Article! Finally found a helpful post on this topic! Thank you so much!
Hello James, Thanks for your appreciation.
Hey, I use iPhone 6 plus. When I talk to anyone on a video call. My iPhone 6 plus getting hot after turn off. ? Please help.
Dear Megan,
Make sure the background app refresh is turned off. And limit the number of apps using location services.
1. You first need to completely drain the battery by leaving the phone on, unplugged, and streaming video content.
2. Charged the battery at least 12 hours.
3. Restart your iPhone.
Awesome Post! There is a big problem with iPhone. Thankful to you for giving wonderful Information how to cool down overheated iPhone.
Hello Ron,
Thanks for the nice words. Keep checking our other blogs on iPhone also, you definitely found them informative.
I had the same issue with my iPhone 6 overheats during play games and very slow after close the game application. Thanks for the tips!