How To Fix An iPhone Home Button That Won’t Work

Is your iPhone Home Button Working? This is a common issue for some models. Here’s how to fix a broken home button on the iPhone (or get it fixed) and a useful workaround app that will make life easier until you repair it.

How To Fix An iPhone Home Button That Won’t Work

You never really realize how much your life depends on one button, that is until it stops working, and getting access to your phone has now become a big problem. But don’t panic!

The great news is, this is an issue that can easily be solved by yourself. We have compiled tips from our experts on how to fix your iPhone home button, but if it still doesn’t come back to life, it might be time to visit us in-store!

Some of the causes of this can be that over the lifetime of having your phone, it has attracted; dirt, moisture, and in general, it has been overused!

How To Fix An iPhone Home Button That Won’t Work

1. Test The Home Button Itself

Click the Home button with your finger. Does it feel normal, or does it feel stuck? Gently move your finger from side to side—does the Home button feel loose?

If it doesn’t feel the way it should, we may be dealing with a hardware problem—but if it has always felt “a little off” and it only recently stopped working, it could be an underlying software problem.

The Most Important Physical Home Button Test

Click the Home button on the very top. Does it work? Try the far left side, and then the bottom, and then the far right side.

Try the corners. If it only works in some locations, like on the top but not on the bottom, you definitely have a hardware problem.

There’s no fixing a Home button with a “directional” problem like this at home, but a lot of the people I worked with would choose simply to live with the problem now that they knew where to press the Home button.

2. Inspect Your iPhone For Damage

Take a close look at the Home button, your iPhone’s display, and inside the charging port and headphone jack on the bottom of your iPhone.

Is there any physical damage or corrosion? Is it possible your iPhone got wet? Did other components (like the camera) stop working too, or is it only the Home button that’s having the problem?

If you discover physical or liquid damage, it’s almost a sure bet that your Home button isn’t working because of a hardware problem, and your iPhone may need to be repaired — skip to the section called Repairing A Broken Home Button below.

3. Turn Your iPhone Off And Back On, And Test

We’re heading into the software troubleshooting phase of the tutorial. As we discussed, your Home button may not work if your iPhone’s software doesn’t react the way it should when you press the Home button.

If your iPhone has been very slow lately, apps have been crashing, or your Home button stopped working after you upgraded to a new version of iOS, a software problem may be the reason why your Home button won’t work.

The first (and least invasive) software troubleshooting step is to turn your iPhone off and back on again. If you already rebooted your iPhone to turn on AssistiveTouch and that didn’t fix your Home button, just move on.

When you turn your iPhone off, all the little programs that keep your iPhone running, one of which processes “events” like a Home button press, are forced to shut down.

When you turn your iPhone back on, those programs start fresh again, and sometimes that’s enough to fix a minor software glitch.

4. Back Up And Restore Your iPhone, And Test Again

More significant software problems can only be fixed by restoring your iPhone, which means that you erase and reload all the software on your iPhone.

If you make an appointment at the Genius Bar to fix a Home button and it’s not obviously a hardware issue, the tech will always restore your iPhone to make sure it’s not a software problem before making a repair.

Back up your iPhone to iTunes or iCloud, and then follow these instructions to DFU restore your iPhone. DFU stands for “Device Firmware Update”, and firmware is the programming that controls how your iPhone’s hardware interacts with its software.

Firmware is between hardware and software—get it?

You won’t find instructions on how to DFU restore your iPhone on Apple’s website. It’s the deepest type of restore possible—if a DFU restore can solve a software problem, it will solve a software problem.

After the restore finishes, you’ll be able to reload your personal information from your iTunes or iCloud backup, and the Home button problem should be solved for good.

Read: 10 Best Websites to Legally Download Software for Free

5. Repairing A Broken Home Button

If you’re under warranty and your iPhone isn’t damaged, head straight for an Apple Store (make an appointment with the Genius Bar so you don’t have to wait for help) or start a mail-in repair on Apple’s support website.

When a Home button won’t work and the iPhone is out of warranty or damaged, people generally go in one of two directions:

Repair Your Home Button

We recommend Puls for high-quality iPhone repairs that cost a lot less than Apple. Puls sends a certified technician directly to you, sometimes in less than an hour.

But before scheduling a repair with Puls, keep this in mind:

Anyone can replace your Home button, but only Apple can reenable Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor built into the Home button.

Touch ID, which was introduced with the iPhone 5S, contains security features that link a specific Home button to a specific iPhone, and for security reasons, Apple is the only company who can crack the code.

If you have a Touch ID-enabled iPhone and anyone other than Apple repairs your iPhone, the Home button will function just like it did before the iPhone 5S, without the Touch ID functionality.

Live With Assistive Touch

About half of the people I’d work with would choose to live with AssistiveTouch, the “software” Home button that lives on the iPhone’s display. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is a free solution.

If you’re shopping for a new cell phone plan or you’re due for an upgrade, this may be the excuse you’ve been waiting for to upgrade to a new iPhone.

Bottom Line

One of the most annoying problems that iPhone owners can face is a Home button that will not work. AssistiveTouch is a good stopgap, but certainly not a perfect fix.

I hope you have been able to fix your home button at home, but if you have not, in the comments section below, I’d like to hear about which repair choice you chose.

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