Every smartphone, regardless of what OS it’s running on (yes, even an iPhone), has a built-in recovery mode. On Android, the recovery on your smartphone can be used to perform tasks like clearing cache, factory resetting the phone, or even installing update packages directly from the phone’s storage or sideloading from a computer via ADB. On an iPhone, the recovery is mainly used to connect to iTunes to restore the original firmware if your iPhone isn’t booting up or is behaving differently.

While this is the case with the stock recovery that comes pre-installed on your smartphone, there’s a lot more you can do with a custom recovery like TWRP. If you’re a frequent visitor to the XDA forums, you’re surely aware of the benefits you get by using a custom recovery like flashing ROMs, kernels, taking backups of your entire system, and a lot more. You can learn more about the advantages of a custom recovery and how to install one on your smartphone, but this article is going to tell you how to boot into recovery on your smartphone.

The steps mentioned here can be applied to boot into both the stock recovery as well as a custom recovery if you have one installed. Note that the steps for every phone differ based on the brand. If you want to know how to boot into recovery on your specific phone, just follow the steps under your phone manufacturer’s name and you’re good to go. Also, there are various ways of accessing the recovery on your smartphone, the most common one being pressing a combination of buttons. We’ll discuss the other ways as well a little later.

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How to Boot into Recovery using Button Combinations

This is the most basic way to boot into recovery on your smartphone as it doesn’t need any additional tools or software. The preliminary step to using button combinations to boot into recovery is to turn off your phone. Once you’ve done that, follow the relevant steps for your smartphone.

ASUS

• Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Asus logo. Keep holding the volume up button until you see the bootloader options.
• Now scroll through the various options using the volume buttons till you see ‘Recovery Mode’ and then press the power button to select it. You’ll now see an Android robot on your screen. Press and hold both the volume up and power buttons here to boot to the recovery screen.

Google Pixel

• Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Google logo. Keep holding the volume down button until you see the bootloader options.
• Now scroll through the various options using the volume down button until you see ‘recovery’ and then press the power button to select it. You’ll now see an Android robot on your screen. Press and hold both the volume up and power buttons here to boot to the recovery screen.

Huawei/Honor

• Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Huawei/Honor logo.
• Keep holding the volume up button until you see the recovery screen.

LG

• Press and hold the volume down button and power button, and release the power button when you see the LG logo.
• Keep holding the volume down button until you see the recovery screen.

Motorola

• Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Moto logo. Keep holding the volume down button until you see the bootloader options.
• Now scroll through the various options using the volume down button until you see ‘recovery’ and then press the power button to select it. You’ll now see an Android robot on your screen. Press and hold both the volume up and power buttons here to boot to the recovery screen.

OnePlus

• Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the OnePlus logo.
• Keep holding the volume down button until you see the recovery screen.

OPPO

• Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Oppo logo.
• Keep holding the volume down button until you see the recovery screen.

Realme

• Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Realme logo.
• Keep holding the volume down button until you see the recovery screen.

Samsung

• If you have a Samsung phone that belongs to the Galaxy S21 series:
  • Press and hold the volume down button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Samsung logo.
  • Keep holding the volume down button until you see the recovery screen.
• If you have a Samsung phone that belongs to the Galaxy S20, Note 20, or Note 10 series:
  • Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Samsung logo.
  • Keep holding the volume up button until you see the recovery screen.
• If you are using a Samsung smartphone from the Galaxy S10, S9, S8, Note 9, or Note 8 series:
  • Press and hold the volume up button, the Bixby key, and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Samsung logo.
  • Keep holding the volume up and the Bixby buttons until you see the recovery screen.
• If you have an older Samsung smartphone that has a physical home button:
  • Press and hold the volume up button, the home button, and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Samsung logo.
  • Keep holding the volume up and home buttons until you see the recovery screen.

Sony

• Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Sony logo.
• Keep holding the volume up button until you see the recovery screen.

Vivo

• Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Vivo logo.
• Keep holding the volume up button until you see the recovery screen.

Xiaomi

• Press and hold the volume up button and the power button, and release the power button when you see the Mi logo.
• Keep holding the volume up button until you see the recovery screen.

Miscellaneous Android Devices

If your smartphone manufacturer isn’t listed above, try all of the combinations we mentioned one-by-one and one of them should ideally work. If none of the key combinations work for you, there are other ways of accessing the recovery screen through software you can try.

Apple iPhone

There are different ways to put your iPhone into recovery mode depending on which iPhone model you have –

• iPhone 8 and above (basically all iPhone devices without a home button): Press the volume up button once and release followed by the volume down button in quick succession which also needs to be released. Then quickly press and hold the side button until you see the recovery screen.
• iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: Press and hold the volume down button and power button until you see the recovery screen.
• iPhone 6s and below: Press and hold the home button and power button until you see the recovery screen.

As mentioned before, the recovery mode on iPhones is mainly used to connect to iTunes to restore the original firmware if your iPhone isn’t booting up or is behaving differently.

How to Boot into Recovery using ADB

If your smartphone’s physical buttons don’t work anymore due to whatsoever reason, or none of the key combos worked for you, accessing the recovery via ADB is a good idea. You will need Minimal ADB and Fastboot on your PC or Mac to make this work. So if you don’t have it already, make sure you install ADB following these instructions for your computer OS.

• Once ADB is installed, connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable. Make sure USB Debugging is enabled in Developer Settings.
• Head over to the folder where you have installed ADB. While holding the ‘control’ key on your keyboard, right-click on the ADB folder and select Open command window here or Open PowerShell window here. Alternatively, you can also launch a command prompt window and ‘cd’ to the ADB directory.
• Next, type in adb devices and hit enter to make sure your smartphone is properly connected. If it is, the command window will return a string of numbers.

• All you have to do now is type in adb reboot recovery and your phone will reboot to recovery.

How to Boot into Recovery using an App on Rooted devices

If you have a rooted Android device, you can easily boot into recovery by using apps Recovery Reboot and Quick Reboot. You just have to open the app and grant root access after which you’ll find the option to boot into recovery.

As mentioned earlier, all of these methods can be used to boot into both the stock as well as a custom recovery. Make sure you know what you’re doing while accessing the recovery on your smartphone since it can result in wiped internal storage if you reset your device by mistake or worse, a bricked device if you flash the wrong zip file. If you’re using a custom recovery, it’s always advisable to make a backup before making modifications to your device — especially when flashing a ROM at 4% battery.