Are you trying to restore your new iPhone 14 from an old iCloud backup? After restoring from iCloud backup and your iPhone reboots, do you notice that your Settings app shows “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar?
For many users, iPhone “Restore in Progress” is stuck with a message like “An estimated 100 MB will be required to finish restoring your apps and data”. Whereas for others, the required space goes as large as a couple of gigabytes. The irony is that such a message is displayed even when the phone already has much more space than what the information suggests.
“Restore in Progress” with no progress bar means your iPhone is still downloading apps and data from the iCloud server. You can just leave it there and wait for it to finish. However, if you want to update your software, back up your iPhone, change your Apple ID, or do other things, you will not be allowed to do it because of the problem of “Restore in Progress” being stuck.
How do you clear “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar? Here you will learn some trusted and proven remedies that many users have tried and fixed the issue without visiting the Apple store.
How to Clear “Restore in Progress” with No Progress Bar on iPhone
A few common fixes that have helped several iOS users across the globe facing the identical problem are explained below in detail.
Solution 1: Delete the Apps That Didn’t Finish Downloading
When iPhone is showing “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar, you may have found that some apps are not finished downloading. If the apps are not so important, you can remove them and stop downloading. After successful removal, your Settings app won’t show “Restore in Progress” anymore. The method to delete an unfinished app is explained below:
- Long-tap the icon of the incomplete app.
- Tap Cancel Download from the context menu.
- Follow the instructions from there to delete the unfinished app from your iPhone.
- Repeat this process for all the apps with similar cases.
- Check whether “Restore in Progress” is there or not.
If you don’t see any unfinished apps, you may check the apps that are keeping downloading data in the background, for example, the Apple Music app. Some people have set the Apple Music app to download all the songs or albums added to their library to iPhone. In such a case, it will take more time to finish the restoration depending on the size of your app data.
Therefore it is recommended to check your Apple Music app or any other similar apps to see if they are still downloading data. If you want to immediately clear the message like “Restore in Progress. An estimated 100 MB will be required to finish restoring your apps and data”, you can just delete these apps. If you don’t mind waiting more time, just leave your iPhone there. The process will finish when the data has been downloaded.
Solution 2: Stop Restoring iPhone
You can use this solution if iPhone shows “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar. As we mentioned above, the “Restore in Progress” message means your iPhone is still restoring app data. You can just stop the restoration, but some of your data will not be restored. You can try restoring from iCloud backup again if you miss some important data.
To stop restoring the iPhone from the iCloud backup, you must follow the steps given below:
- Tap Settings.
- Tap your name from the top of the screen.
- On the Apple ID window, tap iCloud.
- Tap iCloud Backup from the iCloud screen.
- Tap Stop Restoring iPhone from the Backup window.
- Tap Stop when the confirmation box appears to terminate the restoration process.
Solution 3: Force Restart Your iPhone
Force restarting removes the power from the motherboard of your device temporarily, and then puts it back in. This process removes all the junk data and unnecessary information from your iPhone’s memory, thus rebooting it afresh.
However, the methods of force restarting iPhones vary depending on their model and the availability of buttons they have. You can learn how to force restart your iPhone by following the procedure explained here.
Solution 4: Disable Low Power Mode
The ‘Low Power Mode’ makes your iPhone run only the tasks that are extremely necessary for its functioning. This prevents the initialization and working of many services that are crucial for your data.
Simply put, although the ‘Low Power Mode’ reduces battery consumption, when enabled, it may hinder some important tasks like backup and restore, software update, application update, etc.
Therefore, if your iPhone is stuck on “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar, you must check and turn off ‘Low Power Mode’ and wait for 1-2 hours to see if the restoration finishes. The process to disable Low Power Mode is explained below.
- Tap Settings.
- Scroll down and tap Battery.
- When the Battery screen appears, tap to turn off the Low Power Mode switch from the top (if it is enabled).
- Try restoring your phone from the iCloud backup again.
Solution 5: Disconnect the VPN
VPNs use several routers to reach the intended destination. Because your data packets pass through multiple hops (routers), the overall Internet speed may get slow. If your iPhone has a VPN and it is turned on, it may take a lot of time to send requests to the iCloud server and receive data packets from it, thus making the entire restoration process extremely sluggish.
Therefore, it would be a wise idea to temporarily turn off the VPN, and turn it back on once the iCloud backup is successfully restored. You can get rid of the prompt “Restore in Progress. An estimated 100 MB will be required to finish restoring your apps and data” by following the instructions given below:
- From your iPhone’s home screen, tap Settings.
- Go to General.
- Scroll down and tap VPN & Device Management.
- Tap VPN from the next screen.
- On the VPN window, tap to turn off the Status switch for the VPN connection(s).
- Try restoring your iPhone from the iCloud backup again.
Solution 6: Reset Network Settings
When iPhone displays “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar for a long time, it might have something to do with the network. It is probably due to some issue with the network configuration on your device. The best way to resolve this is by resetting all the network settings that your phone has. It will only remove the network settings. Your personal data will not be affected. The process is pretty straightforward and is explained below.
- Go to Settings.
- Tap General.
- Scroll down and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone.
- Tap Reset from the bottom of the next window.
- Tap Reset Network Settings from the menu that appears next.
- Enter your iPhone’s passcode.
- Tap Reset Network Settings on the information box that shows up.
- Wait while all the network settings on your iPhone are reset to factory defaults and your phone restarts.
- Reconfigure your iPhone and connect it to a high-speed stable wireless network.
Solution 7: Turn Off Screen Time
‘Screen Time’ prevents you from accessing your iPhone apps or disables some iPhone services after the configured time is over. If there is an ongoing restoration process and ‘Screen Time’ reaches its threshold, the restoration may be stuck for hours.
Therefore, if the iPhone is stuck on “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar, you can try turning off ‘Screen Time’ and then wait for 1 – 2 hours.
You can follow the instructions given below to turn off ‘Screen Time’ on your iPhone:
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down and tap Screen Time.
- When the Screen Time window comes up, scroll down and tap Turn Off Screen Time.
- On the next screen, enter the Screen Time passcode.
- On the confirmation popup, tap Turn Off Screen Time.
Solution 8: Backup and Restore iPhone Using iTunes
If your important data has not been downloaded yet, but the above troubleshooting methods don’t work and your iPhone seems to show “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar forever, you may try another method to solve the problem and transfer the data from your old iPhone to your new iPhone successfully. This method only works when you can still access your old iPhone. The method is explained below:
Back Up Your Old iPhone
- Launch iTunes on your Windows computer (a Windows 11 PC is used here for reference).
- Use the Lightning Cable to connect your old iPhone to the computer.
- Wait while iTunes detects your iPhone.
- Click the Phone icon from the top of the interface.
- From the Backups section in the right window, click to select This Computer and uncheck the Encrypt local backup box. If you want to encrypt the backup, you can do it. We don’t recommend it because some people forget the password after making the backup so they are not able to restore the backup.
- From the Manually Back Up and Restore column, click Back Up Now.
- On the confirmation box that comes up next, click Don’t Encrypt.
- Wait while iTunes creates your iPhone’s backup on your computer.
Restore New iPhone 14 from the Latest iTunes Backup
- Connect your new iPhone to the computer, Click the Phone icon to get to your iPhone’s Summary screen on iTunes.
- Click Restore Backup from the Manually Back Up and Restore column.
- On the Restore From Backup box, from the iPhone Name drop-down list, choose the backup you created in the previous part.
- Click Restore.
- Wait while iTunes restores your iPhone from the backup.
- Disconnect your iPhone from the computer.
- Continue using your phone normally.
Bonus Tip
If you don’t want to transfer all the data from your old iPhone to a new iPhone, or iTunes doesn’t work as expected, you can try third-party data transfer tools like iMobie AnyTrans to transfer your data. Such tools are more flexible and allow you to choose data types or transfer part of whole the data.
Conclusion
The iPhone being stuck on “Restore in Progress” with no progress bar is a common issue that many iPhone or iPad users have faced when they try to restore their device from iCloud backup. Thankfully, there are some proven fixes that helped a majority of people across the globe to restore their devices from iCloud flawlessly.
