How to Turn on a Phone With a Broken Power Button

A broken power button can be frustrating, especially when it prevents you from turning on your phone.

Contents

Plug in your charger Use a key combination Use USB debugging Download an app Seek professional repair

Fortunately, there are several methods you can use to power on your device without the power button.

Plug in your charger

One of the simplest methods is to connect your phone to a charger. Many smartphones will automatically power on when plugged in.

If your phone has some battery left, connecting it to a charger may wake it up even if the power button is broken. Wait a few moments to see if the phone turns on by itself.

Use a key combination

Most modern phones allow you to use other hardware buttons to power on the device. Typically, you can try the following combinations:

Volume Down + Home Button + Volume Up
Volume Down + Volume Up + Home Button
Volume Down + Volume Up

Hold these buttons together for a few seconds until you see the boot screen. If your phone has a physical home button, that’s usually part of the combination.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Use USB debugging

If you’ve enabled USB debugging on your phone before the power button broke, you can turn it on using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) from your computer. Follow these steps:

Connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable.
Open a command prompt or terminal on your computer.
Type the command adb devices to ensure your phone is recognised.
Enter the command adb reboot to turn on your phone.

This method requires prior setup of USB debugging, so it’s only effective if the feature was enabled before the power button malfunctioned.

Here are our guides on how to root your Android phone or tablet and how to get your Android phone out of safe mode, which covers USB debugging. You should also download and install Minimal ADB & Fastboot on your computer.

Download an app

If your phone is still functional but the power button is unreliable, you can download an app like Power Button to Volume Button from the Google Play Store.

This app allows you to use the volume button to turn on the screen instead of the power button.

There are also apps like Gravity Screen that wake your phone screen when you pick up the device, and Shake Screen On Off that does something similar.

Seek professional repair

If none of the above methods work, it may be time to seek professional help. A repair shop can either fix or replace the broken power button, restoring full functionality to your phone.

If you get away with it this time, consider backing up your data regularly to avoid losing important information if the device becomes completely unresponsive.