Has your iPhone overheated? 8 solutions in hot weather

The iPhone and iPad perform at their best between 0 and 35 degrees Celsius. At higher temperatures, a message may appear on the screen: the iPhone needs to cool down. In this tip we tell you how you can prevent iPhone overheating and what you can do next. Is your iPhone overheating or does your iPhone feel hot? Do you get the iPhone temperature notification? These are the best solutions for an overheated iPhone.

• Solutions
• Causes
• Implications

If you use the iPhone outside the specified temperatures for a long time, this will damage the battery. This will not destroy the iPhone, but the battery life will gradually become shorter. If temperatures are too high, a message will appear on the screen, as shown in the image. You must first let the iPhone cool down before you can use the device again. Sometimes the flash function cannot be used temporarily. In addition to your iPhone, your iPad can also overheat, causing you to be temporarily unable to use it. You can store an iPhone or iPad in an environment with a temperature between -20 and 45 degrees Celsius.

After a few minutes, the iPhone has cooled down sufficiently and you can use it again. Also check out our list of heat wave apps to keep your head cool.

Solutions for iPhone overheating: this is how you can cool down your iPhone

If you receive the iPhone temperature message as shown at the top of this article, then there is actually no other option: the iPhone needs to cool down. This also applies if your iPad is overheated. The solutions for iPhone overheating are actually quite simple:

• Turn off the iPhone completely (if that still works, see here for instructions on resetting your iPhone). No background processes will then be active and the iPhone will have time to cool down. Check after about 15 minutes whether the problem has already been solved.
• Place the iPhone in a shady place, such as indoors or in a place where there is wind, so that the heat can escape.
• Turn off Bluetooth, location services, and other power-consuming features.
• Do not use the camera temporarily. Displaying real-time images via the camera viewfinder requires processing power.
• Don’t play games temporarily. Games place an extra burden on the processor, which makes the iPhone less able to cool down.
• Temporarily avoid using navigation apps or other processor-intensive apps.
• Enable Airplane Mode so that GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and mobile data usage are turned off and the iPhone has a better chance to cool down.
• Do you use iPhone in the car? Then attach your phone holder to the ventilation slots! Your iPhone will then be cooled immediately. And when the weather gets colder, close the ventilation slot so that your iPhone does not overheat due to the warm air through the ventilation.

Causes of iPhone overheating

An overheated iPhone can be caused by:

• Leave iPhone in bright sunlight. On the beach or on a terrace, temperatures can quickly rise above 35 degrees. Read more about use in the sun in our tip ‘Using iPad in bright sunlight’.
• Leave iPhone on dashboard or in other closed space. In bright sunshine, the temperature in a closed space can rise sharply. The glass of the car creates a greenhouse effect.
• Forgot to turn off camera app or flash. If you forget to turn off the Camera app and then put the device in your pocket, the iPhone can become very hot. The camera always remains active and that also costs battery life.
• Forgot to turn off navigation app. Apps that use GPS and show map material on the screen are a major drain on the battery. Moreover, this can cause the iPhone to become hot.
• Charging with defective charger. Especially with cheap chargers, the iPhone can become very hot while charging. It is better to choose an official, approved charger from a good brand.
• iPhone in a closed case. The case retains the heat, especially if the case has a thick protective layer to prevent falls.

Causes under normal conditions

Even under normal circumstances, an iPhone can feel hot or warm. This happens, for example, when transferring data to a new iPhone. It seems like your iPhone is overheating, but usually it doesn’t cause much harm:

• During initial configuration. When setting up a new iPhone, all kinds of processes are done in the background. This causes the iPhone to become warmer.
• Restore data from a backup. When restoring a backup, data is loaded and downloaded, causing the battery to heat up.
• When apps reanalyze data. If you put a lot of photos on your device at once, the faces, objects and more are analyzed. The iPhone can also become hot when installing a major update.
• When using heavy apps. Heavy-duty apps, such as photo and video editing and augmented reality, require more power than a chat app. The iPhone may therefore feel warm.

If your iPhone is overheating due to one of these causes, it will resolve itself when the processes are completed.

What happens if your iPhone gets too hot?

As soon as the iPhone becomes hot, a message will appear on the screen with the text ‘Temperature’ and an instruction to let it cool down. You can no longer use the iPhone. During this cooling-off period:

• …the iPhone screen goes black. If you are navigating, a message will appear over the map.
• … you are temporarily unable to charge your iPhone or charging is slower than normal.
• …the wireless functions will switch to energy-saving mode; You may not be reachable by telephone, text message or iMessage during this period. Emergency calls are still possible.
• … you cannot use the camera and flash temporarily.
• …your iPhone runs slower with graphically demanding or augmented reality apps.

In these cases, you may see the iPhone temperature message, telling you that the iPhone needs to cool down. This means you can temporarily no longer use your iPhone.

The cool-down period only lasts fifteen minutes and is nothing to worry about. Apart from the inconvenience of not being able to use your iPhone for a while, there is nothing else to worry about. You just have to wait patiently and place the iPhone in a shady and cool place (putting it in the refrigerator is not necessary).

So you don’t have to worry about damage occurring if you see the iPhone temperature message. This is an automatic measure that Apple has built in to prevent permanent damage from occurring. Also read our tip about using your iPad in sunlight on the beach, in which we explain what you can do to keep the screen readable.