How Long Does It Take to Restore iPhone? Restore iPhone Taking Too Long

How long does it take to restore iPhone? Restore iPhone taking too long? Find the answers in this tutorial and get the solutions when the restoring iPhone takes too long.

By @Lora Last Updated October 30, 2024

iPhone 13 Pro restore taking forever

 

“I’m setting up my iPhone 13 pro from backup and experiencing an extremely slow restore. The initial estimated time was 15min. It’s slowly increased to 2h without making any progress. I’ve restarted the process three times now with the same results. Looking at my router I’m seeing around 500kbs download from the phone - I have gigabit internet! Is anyone else experiencing these extremely slow speeds?”

- Question from MacRumors

For all iOS users, Apple provides a free iPhone restore service via iTunes or iCloud. Restoring your iPhone requires erasing all data from your device and resetting it to its original factory settings.

Therefore, before restoring your iPhone, make a backup of your important data to avoid iPhone data loss. There comes to a frequently asked question: how long does it take to restore iPhone? This is exactly what this article will walk you through.

How long does it take to restore iPhone

You probably restore iPhone with iTunes when you need to fix some iPhone problems, such as the passcode being forgotten, iPhone being dead, or getting stuck at attempting data recovery. How long does it take to restore from iTunes?

It usually takes no more than 15 – 30 minutes to restore an iPhone using iTunes. As a general rule, you could restore your iPhone in an hour or less. The larger the data size, the longer it will take.

The time it takes to restore iPhone using iTunes depends on a variety of factors. When restoring your iPhone takes 15 minutes or a maximum of 30 minutes, it could be determined by the amount of content to be restored – If the content to be restored in your iPhone is a large file, the restoration process will be slower than if the content is small. Check the chart to find "how long does it take to restore from iCloud/iTunes". 

iPhone Restore Type

Time cost

iCloud (100 MBps Internet Speed)

1-4 hours

iTunes

15-30 minutes

However, it's not always successful when restoring iPhone with iTunes. Sometimes, restoring the iPhone from backup with the iTunes process offers an unusually long time remaining, over 20 hours.

If you see an abnormally long time remaining estimate when attempting to restore an iPhone from backup, it could be the result of an error. With a few troubleshooting steps, you can resolve the issue and significantly speed up the iTunes backup restore process.

How to fix the "restore iPhone taking too long" issue

If the restoring iPhone from backup takes too long, you could try the following solutions to fix this issue. But before you begin, keep in mind that restoring a device from an iTunes backup can take some time. Depending on the size of the backup file, waiting an hour or two is normal.

These situations indicate iPhone restore problems: iTunes backup restore estimates with excessively long time remaining, frequently continuously ticking up past 15 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, and so on.

The following steps only work when iTunes restores from a computer to an iPhone via a charging cable.  

Step 1. Disconnect the iPhone and computer. Update the iTunes on your computer to the latest version.

Step 2. Restart the iPhone and the computer.

Step 3. When the computer restarts, launch iTunes as usual.

Step 4. Reset your iPhone again and tap “Restore from iTunes backup”. Connect the iPhone to the computer again and let the restoring process start.

The easiest way to recover iPhone data without backup

Sometimes, users want to recover iPhone data with iTunes backup by restoring iPhone. However, it will erase all existing data and still has the chance that the iPhone data couldn’t be recovered with this method.

MyRecover for iOS is a professional iPhone data recovery tool to help users recover deleted iPhone data without backup with a few clicks. It supports to recovery of 10 types of iPhone data, including photos, videos, contacts, call history, notes, WeChat history, etc.

Download Software iOS 10 and later
Secure Download

Step 1. Download and install MyRecover for iOS on your computer. Connect your iPhone to the computer.

Step 2. Tap “Trust This Computer” on your iPhone to authorize. And then click “Scan Now” to start scanning the iPhone.

Step 3. After the scanning stage finishes, you could preview and select the data you want to restore by clicking “Recover”.

The bottom line

How long does it take to restore iPhone? From this article, it could take from a few minutes to several hours to restore iPhone. But sometimes restoring iPhones takes too long becomes a rising problem to restore iPhone with iTunes. If the restoring takes an unusually long time, there must be an error. Follow the steps above to fix excessively long iTunes restoring from backup time remaining problem.

If you don't want to recover data from iTunes backup by iPhone restoring, MyRecover for iOS could be a good choice to help you recover iPhone deleted data without backup or restore your iPhone to factory resetting. Of course, making a regular backup via iTunes/iCloud or freeware-AOMEI FoneBackup is always the best way to avoid iPhone data loss.