How to Force the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge to Restart

If your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge ever freezes up, or if you’re stuck at some menu, then you’ll be happy to know there’s a way to force it to reboot.

With so many different companies creating Android smartphones and tablets, it can be frustrating to see one trick work for one device but then not work for another. There are most likely reasons behind these changes that we’ll never find out, but it shouldn’t matter for the consumer. We should expect some basic functions to work for all smartphones and tablets that run the same core software.

Most, if not all Samsung smartphones used to come with a replaceable battery so if the phone ever froze then you know you could pull the battery and the device would reboot after you put it back in.

With the Galaxy S6, this changed for Samsung’s flagship smartphones. So a trick that Samsung customers knew for years was no longer possible. That should be okay though, right? I mean, other Android smartphones have used embedded batteries and they all have a way to force a restart. The thing is, this method doesn’t work on Samsung smartphones(for whatever reason). You can hold the power button down on the Galaxy S7 for however long you want and it will never restart the device. Thankfully though, Samsung knew how important this restart functionality was and they still included it in the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

There’s just a different way to force the Galaxy S7 to restart and that’s what I’m going to show you today.

Galaxy S7 Force Restart

1. Press and Hold the Power and Volume Down Buttons at the Same Time
2. Continue Holding These Two Buttons Until the Galaxy S7 Restarts
3. Then Press the Home Button at the Maintenance Boot Mode

Explanation

I actually talked about this Galaxy S7 Maintenance Boot Mode at the start of my Galaxy S7 tutorials. The process is the same, but you don’t have to do this button combination while the device is powered off. You can do it at anytime and the device will still reboot into this Maintenance Boot Mode. To initiate, simply press and hold the Power button and Volume Down button at the same time. You’ll need to continue holding these two buttons for about 10 seconds and then you’ll see your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge reboot into this special boot mode.

From here, you can do all sorts of things like do a factory reset, boot into safe mode, enable USB debugging mode, power the device off completely or just do a normal boot/restart. This normal boot is the Galaxy S7 forced restart that we are looking for and it should be highlighted automatically. So once we get into the Maintenance Boot Mode, all we’ll have to do is press the Home button and the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge will instantly reboot for us.

The process is very simple and very easy so don’t be afraid of messing anything up. As long as you don’t highlight the Factory Reset option before pressing the Home button then you will not lose any of your information. It will be as if you restarted the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge like normal. It will go through its typical boot animation screens and then you’ll be taken to the lock screen. This method should also work when you’re in any other boot modes(like Recovery Mode) and you just don’t know how to get out. I try to explain how to get in and out of these boot modes when I talk about them.

But there are times when you might panic or simply forget what to do. For those times, you’ll be happy to know that this method should work anytime. It doesn’t matter if the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge is frozen and non-responsive. The device is still monitoring button presses like this and it will still let you restart the device anytime.