How to Factory Reset an iPad

Before you start, grab a Mac or PC, the cable you charge your iPad with (USB-C or Lightning depending on the model), and your Apple Account email and password. Find My is on by default, so the iPad will ask for that password during the reset. Skip this step and you can't finish the wipe.

If you can still unlock the iPad, back it up first. Open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then iCloud Backup, and tap Back Up Now. Or plug into a computer and back up to Finder, Apple Devices, or iTunes. The backup is what you'll restore from after the reset if you want your apps and photos back.

If your iPad is running iPadOS 17 or later and you've entered the wrong passcode enough times to see the iPad Unavailable screen, look at the bottom right corner. There's a Forgot Passcode button. Tap it. The iPad walks you through erasing itself without ever connecting to a computer.

You'll need your Apple Account password and a Wi-Fi or cellular connection. The iPad downloads what it needs over the air, wipes everything, and boots back to the Hello screen. Fastest path when it's available - skip the rest of this guide and head to setup if it works for you.

Hold the top button to bring up the power-off slider. On iPads without a Home button, you need the top button plus either volume button held together. Drag the slider to the right and the screen goes black.

Wait a full minute. The iPad needs to fully power down or the next button sequence won't trigger recovery mode - it'll just turn the iPad back on. If you hear or see any sign of life from the screen, give it longer.

Plug one end of your cable into the iPad (it's still off, leave it that way) and the other into a USB port on your Mac or PC. Use the cable you charge with - any USB-C or Lightning cable that fits should work. Cheap data-only cables sometimes don't, so the charging cable is the safe bet.

If your computer pops up a Trust This Computer prompt, click Trust. You won't see the iPad show up in Finder or iTunes yet - that's normal. The next step is what gets the computer to notice it.

The button sequence depends on your iPad. Without a Home button: press and release volume up, press and release volume down, then press and hold the top button. Keep holding the top button - past the Apple logo, past everything - until you see a cable pointing at a computer icon. That's the recovery-mode screen.

With a Home button: press and hold both the Home button and the top button at the same time. Keep holding past the Apple logo until the same recovery-mode screen appears.

If the lock screen shows up instead of the recovery-mode screen, you let go too early. Turn the iPad off again and redo the sequence. Speed matters on the volume-button presses - quick clicks, not slow holds.

What you open depends on the computer. On a Mac running macOS Catalina or later, open Finder. The iPad shows up in the Finder sidebar under Locations - click it. On a Windows PC, open the Apple Devices app from the Microsoft Store (free download if you don't have it).

On older Macs running Mojave or earlier, or any PC without the Apple Devices app, open iTunes instead. iTunes still handles iPad restores on those systems and treats them exactly the same way.

A dialog pops up saying something like "There is a problem with the iPad that requires it to be updated or restored." Click Restore. Don't click Update - that tries to keep your data, which doesn't work in this situation. Restore is the one that wipes everything and installs a fresh copy of iPadOS.

Confirm with Restore and Update, then click Next, agree to the terms, and let it run. The computer downloads the latest iPadOS - this takes 10 to 30 minutes depending on your internet. If the download runs past 15 minutes the iPad drops out of recovery mode. That's expected. Let the download finish, then turn the iPad off and redo the recovery-mode sequence to pick up where it left off.

When you see the Hello screen on the iPad, the reset is done. Disconnect the cable. You can set the iPad up fresh or restore from your iCloud or computer backup during setup.