Want to roll your iPhone back to iOS 10.3.2? Here’s how.
The iOS 11 betas offer potential bug fixes and new features. But if you need to downgrade your device back to a prior version, that’s fine. What’s more, downgrading is easy: All you need is an archived backup of your device pre-beta, iTunes on your Mac or Windows PC, and to follow the steps below!
Note: If you’re reading this article on the iPhone or iPad you want to revert, either print it out first or open it on another iPhone, iPad, or computer so that you can read along as you go.
How to put your iPhone 6s and older or iPad into recovery mode
There’s no button tap to revert your device back to the standard version of iOS. So, to get started, you’ll need to put your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch into recovery mode. That lets iTunes take over.
- Turn off your iPhone or iPad. (Hold down the Sleep/Wake button until Slide to power off appears, the slide.)
- Plug your USB to Lightning cable (or USB to 30-pin Dock cable for older devices) into your computer.
- Hold down—and keep holding down—the Home button on your iPhone or iPad. (On an iPhone 7, you’ll instead want to hold the Volume Down button.)
- Plug your USB to Lightning cable (or USB to 30-pin Dock cable for older devices) into your iPhone or iPad.
- Continue holding down the Home button (or on iPhone 7, Volume Down) until the connect to iTunes screen comes up.
If, for some reason, Recovery Mode doesn’t work, you can also try putting your iPhone or iPad into DFU mode. Device Firmware Update mode is a little trickier to get into, but will often force a restore even when nothing else works.
How to put your iPhone 7 into recovery mode
Because iPhone 7 doesn’t have a physical Home button — it has a capacitive Force Touch Home button — recovery mode functionality has moved to the volume down button.
- Turn Off your iPhone 7 if it isn’t off already.
- Press and hold down the On/Off button on the right side (iPhone 6 or later) or top (all other iPhones) for 3 seconds.
- Swipe the slide to power off confirmation slider to the right.
- Press and hold down the volume down button on your iPhone 7.
- Plug your iPhone 7 into your Mac or Windows PC and make sure iTunes is running.
- Release the volume down button when you see the Connect to iTunes screen.
How to downgrade to iOS 10.3.2 on your iPhone or iPad
If iTunes on your Mac or Windows PC doesn’t launch automatically, launch it manually. iTunes will detect your device in recovery mode and ask you what you want to do.
- Click Restore on the iTunes popup.
- Click Restore and Update to confirm.
- Click Next on the iOS 10.3.2 Software Updater.
- Click Agree to accept the Terms and Conditions and start downloading iOS 10.3.2.
If your device reboots to your iOS beta before the download is complete, simply repeat the steps above and put it back into Recovery Mode. Once the download is complete, iTunes will restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to the active version of iOS 10.3.2.
How to restore your archived iOS backup to your iPhone or iPad
Once your device is restored, it’ll have a clean copy of the latest version of iOS. To get your data back, you’ll need to restore from a previous backup. If you’ve been running beta software for more than a day, your standard iCloud or iTunes backup will likely be based on that beta and may not restore properly to a device running the current version of iOS. That’s where the archived backup you made prior to installing beta software comes in. (You did make a backup, right?)
- Select Restore from this backup in iTunes.
- Choose the archived backup you made before installing the beta software update.
Once the restore is completed, your iPhone or iPad should be back to where it was before you installed the beta software. If you’ve made any major changes since then, and they don’t sync back some other way, you may have to repeat them to get back to exactly where you were before downgrading.