iPod

How to put iPod touch / iPhone into DFU mode

Posted on by KarthikK in iPod

A small guide on how to put your iPod touch / iPhone  into DFU mode. Works with all G’s of iPod touch / iPhone

What is DFU: Device Firmware Upgrade

Step 1: Turn off your iPod touch / iPhone completely and connect to PC / mac

Step 2: Hold down the Power button for 3 seconds

Step 3: Without releasing the power button, also hold the Home button for 10 seconds

Step 4: Without releasing the home button, release the power button and keep holding the Home button  for 20 seconds.

Itunes will identify that you are in DFU mode.

262 thoughts on “How to put iPod touch / iPhone into DFU mode”

  5. had the same problem ipod touch after jailbrake keps restarting it self….if this will work i´ll be hapiest man in the world… 🙂

  10. thank you very much. i never thought I would be able to do this on my own, but I did! I so happy.

  16. Thansk heaps – I just used these instructions to fix my 11 yr old daughter’s ipod touch that was stuck in recovery mode. She went to bed super sad, thinking it was stuffed but she’ll be stoked in the morning!

  20. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! This saved me a trip to the Apple Store!!! No other article explained how to do this.

  22. Thanks for the instruction. It worked first time. Much appreciated.

  23. hii.. a message on my ipod that “ipod is dissabled connect to itunes ” but after connecting it to itunes .. itunes refuse to connect becuase there is some notification like ipod is locked with passcode first unlock ipod then connect . after that i was keep on searching on net and there is another way to restore ipod with holding power and home buttons but the main problem is that power/sleep button of my ipod is not working .. so can anyone please help me …please !!

  24. i am having major issues! this does not work i dont understand..does the ipod have to be off while pressing the buttons if so how is it possible if it is connected to the computer either way it turns on..and when i tried these steps while the ipod was on it still doesnt work it just asks me “slide to power off” please someone help me i just cant seem to put my ipod in DFU mode

  25. Hey everyone!

    I own an 8GB iPod Touch which had iOS4.
    I run Windows XP (pro) on my PC.

    I tried to update it to iOS 4.3 using iTunes.
    It downloaded the stuff and showed “Updating software”.
    In the middle of it all it gave me a notification saying –
    ”iPod could not be updated. an unknown error occurred (1601)”

    Now my Pod’s a brick! it doesn’t do anything, isn’t even detected on iTunes. It just shows the ‘connect to iTunes’ screen when i plug it in!

    I tried to put it in DFU mode and restore, but it gave the same error!
    I have reinstalled iTunes (latest) and rebooted my PC twice. Nothing has worked.
    what should i do, i don’t have an authorized dealer nearby.

    Can I still jailbreak it or get some functionality outta it?
    Please help me ASAP.

    Any help on what to do would be appreciated.
    PS I’m a real n00b, sorry…

  28. what do i do when dfu fails? my touch screen still does not work this really sucks is it water damage or something fucked up on the inside let me know please

  33. WOW i got freaked out cuz my ipod kept trying to restart (jailbroken) and when i tried to manually restart it it wont do anything.

  34. That did not work for me. the iReb file just throws up an error message and says it has to close unexpectedly. Still can’t get iTunes to recognise my iPod touch (3rd Gen), even though I tried DFU which allowed iTunes to recognise the device but and that failed halfway through. Now iTunes does not recognise it again.

  35. wow thanks a bunch this worked great i cant thank you enough:)!!!!!!!!!! super happy

  36. Hi, I’ve been trying to jailbreak my son’s ipod touch (8gb) for the last 3months UNSUCCESSFULLY and it is honestly DOING MY HEAD IN – my son cannot stand the fact that his ipod has been taken over by his lunatic mother who refuse’s to part with it til it’s done!!!
    I would not only appreciate it-I would actually reward the person who is willing and kind enough to give me step-by-step (VERY EASY & SIMPLE) instructions on how I can jailbreak his ipod, what programs/firmware I need to download, links for these downloads (free downloads) and pics/vids to further assist me of what my comp screen & ipod will (or SHOULD) show me after each step .. Yes … That is how clueless & frustrated I am atm !!!!!!!

  38. So far so good, my iPod touch was flashing between password screen and blinking circle. I am finally able to restore. Thank you!

  39. i need help its not working i did everything but really need help my sister is really mad and im going to get into trouble anybody need help this didnt work!!!!!

  41. I do not know what this did but now my iPod 4th gen won’t even turn on 😦

  43. Thank you very much for this helpful post. I was able to restore my daughter’s iPod. She did however lose all her apps, yet was able to restore all of her music and movies. Life saver!!!

  44. this really worked…….
    Awesome….
    thanx a lot……

    AaWeSoMe……..

    Brilliant.

  45. i use an ipad2 and i forgot the passcode,after several trials,it stated ipad is disabled connect to itunes,but the laptop i last synced it with isnt available,and i connected it to another itunes but its saying i unlock it first and i dont know the passcode,what do i do pls?

  46. Thank you!
    Instead of sending my iPod to repair and paying a silly cost, I fixed it myself.
    I am so grateful 🙂

  47. Fantastic post but I was wanting to know if you could write
    a litte more on this topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Kudos!

  48. thank you so much, have been trying for days to sort out niece’s ipod and this seems to be working

  55. WOW! I spent all day doing other stuff that I found all over the internet and this finally worked!! So simple, thank you so much!!

  56. Hello, after doing this, i get this notice: itunes cant reach server fpr update because i am not connected to the internet! but i am connected, what now?? please help!

  60. IPOD 4 touch just keep going on and off then to white screen. Nothing seems to work. Any ideas?

  65. I did this because my ipod sayed ipod disabled connect to itunes and then when I did it, it says installing driver or something (Cant remember full name) then it sayed installation failed and my ipod wont turn on ):

  67. i did this it keep sayin the same stuff. error 3194 like the other way i tried to restore it. now it wont turn back on

  68. you rock, my friend!!
    thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    i wonder why apple website can’t come up with something brilliant & simple like this!!!!!

  69. Thanks a lot. I really appreciated u guys and it worked perfectly. Ipod touch 4g 8gigabyte.

  71. Well it was shosing the usb going into the itune i tried the above instructions and now its completly OFF, wont do anything!! What do i do?

  72. well well well… this sure works… tried all the other apple stuff, none did it.
    DFU worked… it did the trick. thank you!

  73. thanks dear. my iphone was neither charging nor turning on, and even itune was unable to detect it. but using your trick i am now in a process of restore. well done. hopefully it will recover my iphone. great job

  74. Thank you. iPod is now working. Unfortunately the same game was downloaded onto the iPad. I have tried the same thing but iPad doesn’t power off. When connected to iTunes it says an error has occurred.
    Any advice would be much appreciated.

    Thanks

  75. it WORKED this ipod has been broke for 2 yrs and this fixed it how bout that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  76. Please help I have the same problem as Faiz did on june 13 2011 at 1.27am please help its my daughters ipod and she is driving me nuts i cant do anything to restore it

  77. i download offline update without using itunes..i tried to update using dfu mode..but wen i switched ma ipod touch again, its still the old version 😦
    will someone please hel me en tell me how to install the offline update!

  81. CAN you help? Updated ipod gen 4 on request of settings. Did this, but wiped EVERYTHING OFF! Now i am unable to load any apps, as i need operating systems 4.2.2, and i only have 4.2.0. Any ideas or is it snookered?

  82. Thank you very much. Tried many things I found on the web to get my son’s iPod unlocked when it became disabled and nothing worked but this! Thank you very much!!

  83. OMG this just saved me, the instructions on the apple web site werent working for me but your steps did the trick. Appericate it!

  84. is it supposed to go into recovery mode now after i unlocked it? i followed the instuctions but didnt want to lose everything.

  85. my i pod 3g does not working.i tried to charge it many times..no sign of power…..help me……

  88. MY APPLE IPOD TOUCH WONT DO NOTHING. ALL IT DOES IS GO TO A BLACK SCREEN WITH A APPLE AND SOMETIME FLASH A WHITE SCREEN THEN BLACK THEN A APPLE APPEARS. WHAT CAN I DO TO GET IT TO WORK HOLDING THE BUTTONS DIDNT WORK.

  89. Didn’t work, still disabled. All this did was try to send me into recovery mode. I’ll try it again, what do I have to lose?

  92. IDK if this is what fixed my ipod BUT i know that after i tried it the pod is working!! thanks.

  93. I attempted it once and it didn’t work…I thought I’d give it another go and it worked….so very happy, thanks!

  103. After trying the iOS 6.1 update my iPod 4G was frozen. Following your steps I was able to recover. Luckily I had made a backup just before the 6.1 upgrade.

  105. After following these instructions, I left the iPod plugged in my LapTop for a about 10 minutes, I downloaded the iTune and installed it, in the meantime I also went and downloaded the Download iOS 4.1 For iPod Touch 4th Generation (4G) and it was not installed again in my iPod from http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/download-ios-4-1-for-ipod-touch-4th-generation-4g/ the iPod did not allow me to reinstall iTune, I retry to install it 4 times and then I clicked ignore, then by itself the iPod just showed up the already in use menu and nothing was lost, leaving the iPod connected while downloading its driver help to keep the iPone working itself out, don’t be inpatient and nothing was lost. I’d backed up all my daughter’s pictures by pure coincidence before following your instructions. Backing up your work before a major repair is the right way to avoid the upsetting time of losing precious memories. Thank you for your appreciated help.

  113. I did that and heard my computer making noises so i assumed it was working but nothing else happened after….. WHAT DO I DO?!
    Please help!

  118. my iPod Touch 4g (jailbroken) stopped working&is frozen….. It keeps restarting/rebooting by its self. I cant do dfu mode or anything, because my home button is broken. It works SOMETIMES. please help!

  119. Thank you so much! I was locked out for 3-4 hours… I’ll never do that again!

  123. I have reset & restored this iPod 4th gen numerous times, the computer sees the iPod to restore & reset but the screen on iPod still is black. Power button, home button do nothing for the iPod .

  124. oh my god! thank you sooo much i have a 2nd Gen iPod touch, and it was running on like, 2.2.1 or something, now its on 4.2.1 !(: THANK YOU

  125. I tried this and now the iPod is just blank will not switch on HELP!!!!! 😦

  131. thanks i recently found a iPod touch 5th generation and it was lock best guide to unlock thanks

  134. Thank you so much! This worked amazingly! Anyone who says it doesnt work either doesnt have this problem or isn’t doing it right, coz it worked amazingly for me! Thanks again, I though my iPod was a-goner!

  137. Installed iOS 7 (Not the clean way) on my iPhone 5, worked well for a while, decided to downgrade back to 6.1.4 due to battery issues. Connected my phone to iTunes, and my phone and itunes completely locked down. THANK YOU for helping me get out of it. THANK YOU

  140. THANK YOU SO MUCH,MY SONS IPOD WAS LOCKED FOR HOW MANY YEARS HE SAID AND AFTER YOUR HELP IT WAS RESET AND UNLOCKED AND WORKS AGAIN:) THANKS FOR YOUR GREAT ADVICE.WILL HAVE TO SAVE THIS PAGE

  141. I just followed this process, and now my iPod screen is totally black, even the recovery mode screen doesn’t appear. I’m so discouraged. I made an entry on the Apple discussion forum (as BeachcomberNC) this morning and then found this link, thought it would help. It appears that it only made it worse. The whole problem started when I was doing an IOS update, locked up. Now I can’t even get the screen to come on. Any clues or suggestions? Apple kept insisting I run the update, my iPod was working with no problems at all. So I ran the update and now my iPod is unusable. Please see my discussion forum entry for details, or email me, and I can expound. I need help, live in an area with no Apple store, and it’s not covered under warranty. Thank you!

  142. Thank you Thank you Thank you !!!! My sons ipod was locked and with your help we unlocked it.

  143. Everything I do for my sisters iPod touch 5th generation doesn’t work the kids played it till it was dead and now it won’t charge I thank it’s the charger but not sure it’s not been near water or anything can someone please help me with this problem

  144. I have a iPhone 4 and when I go to turn the volume up or down with the buttons it doesn’t show ringtone like it did when I first got the phone and I also have problems with my speakers only on works I was told that one speaker is like for games and the other is for the ringtone but ya and to turn my ringtone down or up I have to go to settings then go to sounds and turn it down or up that way can someone tell me what’s wrong??!!

  146. I need help my iPod is locked or something with i go to get into it it has a pic of a wire and saying iTunes what do I do.

  148. Awesome! My kids “broke” my ipod touch by trying the password too many times. This worked! Now if I can keep the kids off it!

  151. i have put my phone in DFU mode and and for some reason i cant restore it back because of various problems like cannot connect to the server and so an… can you help me…

  154. What’s up it’s me, I am also visiting this web
    site regularly, this web site is really good and the people are really sharing fastidious thoughts.

  155. although this was made years ago… THIS SAVED MY LIFE. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

  157. sweet baby jesus thank you. had this ipod sitting in my desk for 3 years thinking i’d never get it to work.

  158. so wat????? i dont get it well its working…… i think well if i doest work
    well
    letts just say
    u
    r
    dead
    3
    ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  169. ipod touch 1g 32gb has connect to itunes but itunes says phones in recovery must restore before connecting to itunes. i did have a passcode lock that i forgot. what do i do to get it out of recovery so i can jailbreak it

  170. This worked for me! I have an old generation iPod touch and it would just stay on the reset screen and wouldn’t do anything. I did the steps and then downloaded the lastest version of iTunes and then restored the iPod and it upgraded to the latest software. After you do the steps above iTunes basically walks you through the next steps. Note* if your iPod is jailbroken like mine was, it will most likely go back to normal. Not sure if there is a way to avoid this but I’d rather have a working iPod. If you have an old gen. iPod and it’s not working, most likely you need to do the steps above (if you can’t get into it) and restore and update.

  172. Thank you! My son lost his 32gb Itouch 2 years ago and just found it. It was PW locked and the recover mode wouldn’t work…halfway through it would ask for the password again. I was frightened when the screen went black as people previously mentioned above after following your instructions but I suppose that’s because it then needed to be re-connected to itunes and placed into recovery mode to pull the software back in. Once it connected, it began downloading the recovery and I slowly watched it come back to life. You are a genius. Thank you for taking the time to share this fantastic tip. (and allow me to show up my tech savvy teens!)

  173. Dear whom ever owns this website,
    Under the account that you DESTROYED my ipod, it will not turn on. I am suing you for breaking my ipod into further damage. You have to give me a new one, or pay me with $150 to buy a new one. Please email me your way of re-paying me for my ipod at mac1aroni1@gmail.com thank you, and have a nice day.

  176. umm yeah it doesnt work for recovering it tried and it just told me what it told me before and yeah my ipod is still in recovery mode telling me to go to itunes when itunes tells me to go recover it

  179. I know this was made many years ago, but anything is worth a try at the moment.
    My Ipod Touch is stuck in recovery mode, Itunes is saying that I need to restore it.
    So I tried will no success. I then tried DFU mode, still nothing. I have tried using different USB’s, ports, and computers, again nothing. I keep getting a message saying The Ipod “Ipod” could not be restored. An unknown error occured (1).
    Any Ideas other than throwing the Ipod against a brick wall?

  180. I am having issues with ipod touch, daughter locked it. It reads disabled connect to itunes. I have tried that and it reads can not connect without password. So I tried to restore it, no luck there either, I am all out of options here and just want this unlocked!! please help!

  181. I will immediately seize your rss feed as I can’t in finding your e-mail subscription
    link or e-newsletter service. Do you have any? Please let me recognize in order that I could subscribe.
    Thanks.

  182. I tried to update my daughters iPod touch 4th generation and it is now just flashing between blank screen and the apple screen. I do not have access to iTunes right now vis there another way to fix it?

  191. forgot my passcode so was locked out, tried these instructions and now my phone wont even turn on now 😦

  192. Thank you! My Daughters Ipod was locked for about 6 months finally this worked!!! I agree apple needs to come up with something this easy!!

  194. Thank You bought a Ipod touch 32 gig for $40 was locked out for 22 million minutes followed your post and all is restored like new Awsome who all can say they got a perfectly good 32 gig Ipod touch for $40 Thanks!!

  196. Thank you so much, I missed clicked in ifile and my iPod wouldn’t respond so I turned it off. Then when it only showed that darned apple for 3 hours i tried plugging it into the computer, and when it couldn’t find that my device was plugged in, you saved me. YOU ARE AMAZING, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  199. Although it might deletes everything specially if you didn’t back up, but its really helpful
    I tried before many methods, this is the only one worked for me
    Thank You Very Very Much

  201. my ipod 5th gen was disabled and i forgot the passcode. i don’t know what to do. please help.

  202. You rock! Thank you for taking the time to share this information that is helping so many people because I know you didn’t have to but ya did. Thanks SO…O much! 😉

  203. Now that I followed your instructions my ipod doesn’t even turn on! How in the world am I suppose to get this thing going. Even when plugging it in to my computer it doesn’t show up

  206. My iPod fell in water and the screen is perfectly fine but the touch screen won’t slide or anything what can I do..😞

  209. Omg your my life saver i love you thank you some much i awe you my life omg thanky i cant stop thanking you so much omg thank you lololololol i with never for get you to contact me just follow me on instagrama and direct message me omg thank you so much god bless you soul that i so precious @destinye on Instagram….. 🙂

  212. Another thank you to add to your list. After a wasted hour looking elsewhere, this got me going in less than 2 minutes. Thank you again.

  213. If we put ipod 4 in DFU, will it unlock? Ours decided to set a passcode without our permission…

  217. hi

    was looking for fix for ipad error 40 and found a link to this site. did all and got to where drivers were installed but didn’t fix the error. do you have any ideas?

  223. this is still keep on saying it needs to be restored but every time i try to restore it it says itunes cant restore it…. i tried this and it is not working…

  227. Such a life savor! My 8 year old totally locked me out of my ipod touch. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

  228. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! My iPod was working fine last night and then it wouldn’t turn on today. I followed your steps and did an iCloud back up and working perfectly again. I have to put my music back on, but that’s not a big deal. Thanks again 🙂 🙂 🙂

  232. I did as the instructions said but now my I pod is not turning on what should I do ?

  234. Thanks so much! this helped me restore my Ipod. Finally I’ll be having it completely working 😀

  235. didn’t really help. My ipod was disabled so i tried this. My ipod is no longer disabled, but all my data is gone. 2 years worth of apps, music, and pictures are gone D:

  238. I have an iPod 4th Generation 16 GB and I cannot turn it on. I have tried many methods including this one but none of them seem to work. The iPod connects the the computer and iTunes but it says that my iPod is in recovery mode and I tried to restore it but that didn’t work because it said that an error code. I am really frustrated because I didn’t use it that much and now it is all of a sudden not working. I am using Windows 7 Ultimate. I hope that someone can help me.

  239. There is s picture of the itunes symbol and the charger symbol underneath that on my iPod 5th gen and it won’t turn on and the USB cable that came with it is broken what do I do

  242. Thanks so much! I had tried several options that did not work until I saw your response about dfu mode

  246. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I found my old iPod yesterday and have been frantically looking up any directions on how to do this. I am so happy I found this!!!

  248. Tried this on my ipod touch 5th generation and it didn’t work. Ive literally tried everything I could think of. I dont know what else to do.

  251. I want to thank you for having the solution that finally got my extremely dead ipod to resurrect. Nothing else worked (Apple support has hours of my life I will never get back). You have provided an excellent (and $$ saving) service. I am going to spread the word.

  252. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! My Ipod Touch suddenly turned itself off for no reason, and I couldn’t get it to turn it back on no matter how long I held the power button or fiddled with the charger. All I got was a black screen with no response whatsoever. I was freaking out hardcore there for a second thinking that it was done for but this helped! All of my info and apps were still there, and it’s back to normal. Thank you so so much!!

  254. What if your home button does not work?????????

    My IPod Touch 5th Generation (32GB) Has lately been weird. It really, really does not want to connect to WiFi or stay that way, and after it being on for a couple hours, the screen starts having black bars flickering on it as if the pixels are malfunctioning. The it shuts down but not with out one of the following:
    -The screen freezes for a couple of seconds and fades to black
    -The screen displays purple/pink stripes layering whatever’s on screen (vertical or horizontal)
    -the screen goes half grey half dark over what is on the screen and fades to black.

    I’m sure its not the battery. Every time it has happened, the battery was near full. The shut downs happen randomly, the WiFi connectivity is crap, and the clock keeps resetting. Each shut down, the IPod seems to “forget” what I was doing before so some notifications appear twice and the clock resets to he last hour it remembers. The auto-set clock function doesn’t seem to work either. PLEASE PLEASE HELP!

  255. This helped so much, I am beyond grateful for this whole tutorial thing oh and follow me on insta @praisemartin 🙂

  257. THANK YOU!!! My granddaughter locked my grandsons ipod by trying too many times to get in with the wrong password. I tried everything and somehow finally stumbled on this article and it WORKED!!! We lost all apps, pics etc, but its better than losing the ipod altogether. (And we will be sure to back it up more frequently just in case this happens again as we had the option to restore from itunes or icloud but hadnt set it up) But thank you again. Very helpful and saved me at least $50 if not $200 having to buy a new one

  259. Thanks so much I was killing my brain trying to figure out what was wrong with my ipod.

  260. I use my old iPhone 6 as an iPod, and I ended up getting locked out of it. This saved me a trip to the Apple Store after holding the power button and home button wouldn’t put it into recovery mode. Thank you so, so much!

  262. thank you so much btw it wipes all memory of the device, and you have to follow your directions TO THE WORD. but it finally worked for me

Leave a comment