iPhone Stuck in Recovery Mode. Choose Update, Not Restore.

Written and maintained by the Desert Data Recovery lab team. · Updated October 26, 2026

The phone is stuck after an update, or it will not finish starting, and the computer is offering Update or Restore. This is not the smashed-screen case on the iPhone data recovery page. Apple's recovery articles already say which button keeps the data. The rest of this page is those articles, and what is left once Restore has erased the phone.

Update keeps the data. Restore erases the phone.

When the computer sees an iPhone in recovery mode, it offers Update or Restore. Apple's wording is direct, and it is the whole decision:

• If the Restore screen appears (published August 12, 2026): click Update (not Restore) to reinstall iOS and keep your personal data. Leave the phone connected until that update finishes.
• If you can't update or restore your iPhone (published August 12, 2026): when Update or Restore appears, Restore reinstalls iOS and erases all your data. If you have not tried updating yet, try updating first.
• If your iPhone freezes on the Apple logo (published September 14, 2026): when asked to update or restore, choose Update. Apple says that updates the phone to the latest iOS. If you choose Restore, it will erase your iPhone.

The recovery-mode article opens by telling you to put the phone in recovery mode and restore it with a computer. The step under that heading says to try Update first if you have not, because Restore erases all your data. Follow that step.

Which screen you are on

Apple splits this into three articles. They are not the same wait, and they are not the same first step.

A progress bar under the Apple logo, during a restore or a migration, on iOS 13 or later. That article says the logo and the bar can stay up for over an hour. Put the phone in recovery mode only after the bar has not moved for at least one hour. After that, the choice on the computer is still Update.

The Apple logo for several minutes with no progress bar, a "Connect to computer" screen, a computer that does not recognize the phone or says it is in recovery mode, or a phone that repeatedly starts up to Recovery Assistant and does not recover. Those are the situations in the recovery-mode article. The first move there is recovery mode, then Update.

The Restore screen. That article says to connect the phone with its original cable, leave it connected, and restart it. iPhone 8 or later: press and release volume up, press and release volume down, then hold the side button until the Apple logo. iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: hold the side or top button and volume down until the logo. iPhone 6s or earlier: hold the side or top button and the Home button until the logo. If the Restore screen is still there after the restart, reinstall with Update, not Restore.

How Apple says to reach Update

From the recovery-mode article: update the Mac, or on a PC get the current Apple Devices app. Connect a USB cable. Open Finder on the Mac, or Apple Devices on the PC. Wait until the phone shows "Connect to computer." Then:

• iPhone 8 or later, including iPhone SE (2nd generation and later). Press and quickly release volume up. Press and quickly release volume down. Hold the side button until the Connect to computer screen appears.
• iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Hold the top or side button and volume down together until that screen appears.
• iPhone 6s or earlier, including the first SE. Hold Home and the top or side button until that screen appears.

The Apple-logo article names the same choice on older software: Finder on a Mac with macOS Catalina or later, iTunes on a Mac with Mojave or earlier, and the Apple Devices app or iTunes on a PC. Choose Update when the computer asks.

The download can run long. The recovery-mode article says if it takes more than 15 minutes, the phone might leave the Connect to computer screen. Let the download finish, then bring the phone back to that screen before you continue, and choose Update when the computer asks. The Restore-screen article says to leave the phone connected until the update finishes.

A broken or stuck button is a different stop. The recovery-mode article says you might need service if you can't use recovery mode because a button doesn't work or sticks. The Restore-screen article says the device might need service if you can't restart because a button is broken. Restore does not press a button that will not move.

Find the copies before anyone clicks Restore

Update is the attempt to keep what is still on the phone. Restore throws that copy away. Before Restore, find out whether another copy already exists. Apple's backup methods (published October 20, 2026) are iCloud, a computer, or both. iCloud backups are always encrypted. A computer backup is not encrypted unless someone turned that on.

iCloud Backup. You cannot open Settings on a phone that will not boot, so use something else that is signed into the same Apple Account. Apple's iCloud guide:

• Another iPhone or iPad: Settings, your name, iCloud, iCloud Backup. The devices with iCloud Backup turned on are listed there.
• A Mac: Apple menu, System Settings, your name, iCloud, Manage, Backups.
• A Windows PC: iCloud for Windows, Storage, Backups.

Look. Do not delete, and do not turn iCloud Backup off. Apple's warning on that page: deleting the iCloud backup stops automatic backups, and if you turn iCloud Backup off, the stored backups are kept for 180 days and then deleted. The date and time line Apple documents is on the iPhone itself. How to back up with iCloud says that under Back Up Now you see the date and time of the last backup. A phone stuck in recovery mode will not show you that line. A device name in the backup list means iCloud Backup was on. It is not, by itself, the date.

A backup on a computer. You do not need the stuck phone to trust the computer to see whether the folder is there. Apple's locate-backups article (published October 20, 2026):

• Mac: Finder, Go, Go to Folder, then ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
• PC: Windows key + R, then %USERPROFILE%\Apple\MobileSync\Backup. If that folder does not open, %AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

An empty or missing folder means that Mac or PC does not have a backup where Apple stores them. Folders inside it mean a backup is on that computer. Leave them. Apple says after you delete a backup, you can't recover it. Manage Backups, in Finder or Apple Devices, can show the backup and can archive it so a later backup does not replace it, but those steps connect the phone, ask you to tap Trust, and ask for the passcode. A phone on the recovery screen may not do that. The folder is the check you can do while it is stuck. Do not delete a folder out of it to tidy the disk.

If the computer backup was encrypted, you need the password. Apple's encrypted-backup article (published September 21, 2026) says Encrypt local backup, in Finder, Apple Devices, or iTunes, is off by default. Once it is on, you need that password to use the backup. If you forgot it, Apple's two options are to use an iCloud backup instead, or to reset the backup password. Resetting does not open the previous encrypted backups. Apple says you won't be able to use them. Resetting also assumes you can back up the phone as it is now. This phone cannot make that new backup until it boots. Keep the password if you still know it.

iCloud Photos is not the iCloud backup. Backup methods says an iCloud backup does not include photos if iCloud Photos was turned on, and does not include messages if you sync messages with iCloud. Notes that you already store and sync in iCloud are out of the backup for the same reason. The missing-information article says iCloud Photos uploads photos and videos to iCloud and they are not in the nightly backup. The iCloud Photos article says they are not duplicated into the iCloud backup. Open the Photos app on another device signed into the same Apple Account. Apple's iPhone guide also says you can open that library in a web browser. If iCloud Photos was off, the same missing-information article says the iCloud backup may include what was in Photos or Camera Roll.

A computer backup has its own gaps. Apple says it does not include content that was already syncing in iCloud, including iCloud Photos and messages, and it does not include Health, Activity, or Keychain unless the backup was encrypted. A recent iCloud backup and a recent computer backup are two different copies. Check both. Check Photos separately.

If Update fails again

Run Update again after the download has actually finished, with the phone back on the Connect to computer screen. A second failure is still not a reason to switch to Restore while the only copy is the one on the phone.

The recovery-mode article says you might need service if you can't update or restore the phone with recovery mode. The Restore-screen article says the device might need service if that screen is still there after those steps, or if a button is broken. Neither sentence tells you to erase the phone first.

If you have a backup you can use — you have seen it, and you have the password if the computer copy is encrypted — Restore is the erase Apple described, and the way back onto a phone is that backup. If you do not have that backup, stop. Leave the phone on the recovery screen rather than erasing it to see if a third try of Restore "clears" the loop.

If Restore already ran

The recovery article says Restore reinstalls iOS and erases all your data. The Apple-logo article says Restore will erase your iPhone. How to restore from a backup is the path Apple documents after that: during setup, From iCloud Backup, or on the computer, Restore Backup. Review the date and the size. Apple says to choose the most recent backup. An encrypted computer backup asks for the password.

If the phone was already set up as new, do not wait. If restore from iCloud backup failed (published June 30, 2026) says to erase it and restore a previously saved iCloud backup as soon as possible. If you do not, the new iCloud backups from that fresh setup overwrite the previously saved ones. The same article says a phone back from an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider might have been erased, and then needs an existing backup or has to be set up as a new device. Read that before you hand the phone to anyone whose next step is a restore.

What you should not expect is a lab pulling the pre-Restore photos off the chip. Two different Apple documents cover the two halves of that, and they should stay two documents.

The support articles above say Restore erases the data. They do not say the erase is reversible, and they do not say the old files are left on the flash for a reader. We do not have an Apple sentence that calls recovery-mode Restore a softer delete than an erase.

Apple's Data Protection guide (published February 18, 2021) is the encryption side. Each file has its own key. The class key is protected with the hardware UID and, for some classes, the user's passcode. Wrapped file keys are handled in the Secure Enclave. The file key is never directly exposed to the Application Processor. The hardware AES Engine decrypts a file as it is read from flash. The guide also describes an effaceable key that exists so it can be erased on demand, by Erase All Content and Settings or by a remote wipe. Apple's sentence for that erase: erasing the key in this manner renders all files cryptographically inaccessible. A programmer on the removed flash does not have the Secure Enclave, the UID, or a key that has been erased. We will not tell you a chip-off brings back an iPhone that has been erased.

If it still will not boot, and you have not erased it

That is the case where a lab is even in the conversation. Apple's articles stop at "you might need service" when Update will not complete. They do not publish a lab procedure, and we will not invent one that sounds more certain than those pages.

What we can say, from the same Data Protection guide, is what has to happen for the files to come off. The phone decrypts its own files when it is running, through the Secure Enclave and the hardware AES Engine. The class key is protected with that phone's hardware UID, and for some classes the passcode. Desoldering the storage and reading it somewhere else does not produce those keys. When there is a path, it is the original phone reaching a boot where it can still do that, and someone who knows the passcode unlocking it. The iPhone page is the dead, dropped, and water-damaged version of that limit. This page does not add a method the guide does not have.

The recovery articles do not say which fault this phone has. An evaluation is looking at this phone. If the silicon that holds the UID is what failed, the guide is the wall: the keys are not a file on the flash. We don't advertise a success rate.

What the public case log actually has

The public case log has no iPhone that came in stuck in recovery mode, frozen on the Apple logo, or already erased by Restore. We will not invent a case, a method, or an outcome to fill that.

If Update has failed, you have not clicked Restore, and you have looked for the iCloud backup, the computer backup, and iCloud Photos, the next step is an evaluation of the phone as it is. Bring the passcode if you know it. Bring the name of the Apple Account, and the computer-backup password if there is one, and do not reset that password on the way here. Arizona drop-off is on the locations page. Everywhere else is mail-in. The phone number on this site is (602) 686-2622, Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:00pm.