If your iPad, iPad Air, iPad mini, or iPad Pro suddenly freezes and becomes unresponsive to gestures and button presses, you should be able to fix the problem within seconds.
Every now and then, your iPad may become unresponsive to touches. In most cases, this is not a sign of a larger problem and you should be able to fix it quickly. However, if the fixes in this guide don’t work, you’ll need to take your tablet to an Apple Store so they can diagnose the problem.
In this guide, we’ll show you some quick and easy steps to take if your iPad crashes while using an app or just sitting on the home screen.
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Restart Your iPad
The first thing you should try is a simple reboot. If possible, power off your iPad normally, wait a minute, and then turn it back on.
In some cases this may not work because the screen does not respond to keys and gestures. If this is the case, proceed to the next steps.
Force Restart
If a simple restart doesn’t work, you need to force restart your iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air or iPad Pro. This process only takes a few seconds to complete and your data will remain intact.
If you have an iPad with a home button, use this button combination to force restart your device:
If you have an iPad without a home button, the button combination is different:
At this point your iPad should reboot normally and return you to the lock screen. If it doesn’t reboot properly, continue to the next steps.
Charge Your iPad
If your iPad won’t boot normally, you’ll want to find the nearest charging cable, plug it into your device, and wait for it to charge to 100%. Once fully charged, try turning on the device. If it’s still frozen, skip to this step.
Boot into Recovery Mode
If your iPad is still locked, you need to boot it in Recovery Mode. Here’s how to boot an iPad into Recovery Mode:
First, connect your iPad to a computer. If you have a Mac running macOS Catalina or later, open Finder. If you’re using a mac or a Windows PC running macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes.
Find your device and follow these steps with your iPad docked:
Keep these buttons pressed until you see the Recovery Mode screen. You’ll soon see a popup and you’ll want to choose Update instead of Restore from the menu. This will update your iPad with the latest iPadOS software.
