Your iPhone Has a New Siri Voice Command You’ll Want to Know About

This is one of several new Siri commands on iOS 16.
Jason Cipriani/CNET

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

Siri allows you to do so much with your voice. You can do basic things like make a phone call or get directions, but it can also get more complicated — maybe you want to pull up all the movie showtimes for your local theater. And none of this requires the use of your hands.

Apple is always adding new commands to Siri, and with the somewhat recent release of iOS 16, there’s one particular addition I’m most excited about. 

You can finally use your voice to restart your iPhone.

Anytime I notice a software issue with my iPhone, like applications automatically force-closing, a laggy operating system or unresponsive features, I reboot my device to hopefully fix these bugs. And many times it does.

Don’t miss: iOS 16.2 on Your iPhone: Every New Feature, Tool and More

However, the only way to restart my iPhone is by either turning the phone off and on or force-restarting it. Both of these options require the use of my hands, and take several steps, but now it’s so much easier thanks to iOS 16. If you’re having any issues and need to reboot your device, here’s how to do it with just your voice.

You should also check out these 10 hidden iOS 16 features for your iPhone and everything you need to understand your iPhone’s latest software update.

Restart your iPhone using this simple voice command

As long as you have the “Hey Siri” feature enabled, which constantly listens for the two-letter command, you can say the following to restart your iPhone:

• First, say “Hey Siri” to activate Siri.
• Next, say “Restart iPhone.”
• And last, say “Yes” when Siri prompts you to confirm.

Your iPhone will then restart. You’ll need to enter your passcode to unlock your screen.

You can also tap on Restart to confirm.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

You can also use this new feature on the iPad, but you’ll need to be running at least iPadOS 16.1.

If you don’t have “Hey Siri” enabled, you can to Settings > Siri & Search and toggle on Listen for “Hey Siri.” If you don’t want your iPhone listening for this command all the time, you can always just activate Siri by holding down on the side button for a second, although this does defeat the whole hands-free aspect of restarting your iPhone.