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Why Is Wi-Fi Grayed Out On My iPhone? Here’s The Real Fix!

    David Payette
  • 3 years ago
    • Categories: Wireless

Your iPhone hasn’t been connecting to Wi-Fi networks that it used to connect to automatically. You opened Settings -> Wi-Fi to see what’s happening, and discovered that that the Wi-Fi button is grayed out and you can’t turn it back on.

If the Bluetooth on your iPhone is showing the spinning wheel in Settings -> Bluetooth and won’t detect any devices, the suggestions in this article might fix that problem as well. In this article, I’ll explain why your iPhone’s Wi-Fi is grayed out and the steps you can take to fix the Wi-Fi on your iPhone.

This article is inspired by a question I received from Robert in our iPhone Help Facebook group, where I encourage readers to ask questions about their iPhones and other tech devices. Robert posted,

“The wifi button is greyed-out and does not work and Bluetooth will not work either (spinning wheel) Can you please help?”

Robert, I certainly hope so: This one is dedicated to you!

Why Is The Wi-Fi Grayed Out On My iPhone?

In my experience, a grayed-out Wi-Fi button usually indicates a hardware problem with the Wi-Fi antenna on your iPhone. On Robert’s model, an iPhone 4S, the Wi-Fi antenna runs directly under the headphone jack, and often times some debris or a little drop of liquid can short it out.

A grayed-out Wi-Fi button can affect any model of iPhone, even ones without a headphone jack.

How Can I Tell If My iPhone’s Wi-Fi Antenna Is Damaged?

Take a flashlight and point it down the headphone jack on your iPhone. If you see any debris in there, take a toothbrush (one you’ve never used) or an anti-static brush and gently brush out the gunk. If you have an iPhone 4 or 4S, you’ll see a white dot at the bottom of the headphone jack.

That circular sticker is one of the liquid contact indicators Apple techs use to determine whether liquid has come into contact with your iPhone. I’m not here to play the blame game, but if that white dot has turned red, your iPhone has come into contact with liquid at some point, and that can explain the cause of the issue.

Before we rule out a software issue, try resetting the Network Settings on your iPhone by going to Settings -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings. Resetting the network settings restores your iPhone’s Wi-Fi, Virtual Private Network, and other network settings to factory defaults.

Before you do that, however, make sure you know your Wi-Fi passwords, because “Reset Network Settings” will erase them from your iPhone. After your iPhone reboots, you’ll have to reconnect to your Wi-Fi network by heading to Settings -> Wi-Fi.

What If ‘Reset Network Settings’ Doesn’t Fix My iPhone’s Wi-Fi Antenna?

My experience and gut tells me that after your iPhone reboots, your Wi-Fi antenna will still be grayed out, and we’ve got a hardware issue on our hands. Apple won’t repair just a Wi-Fi antenna on an iPhone, so a grayed-out Wi-Fi antenna means you’ll have to replace your entire iPhone — if you go through Apple. (If you’re under warranty, by all means, go through Apple!)

If you’re not under warranty, replacing an iPhone through the Genius Bar or AppleCare is much cheaper than purchasing a new phone at retail cost, but it’s still not cheap. To start the repair process, call your local Apple Store and set up an appointment with the Genius Bar or visit the Apple Support website to begin the repair process online.

Your Experiences With Fixing The Grayed-Out Wi-Fi On iPhone

As this article wraps up, I’d love to hear your experiences with fixing the Wi-Fi on your personal iPhone in the comments section below — especially if you’ve gone so far as to stick your iPhone in the fridge or under a lamp. I’m confident that we can work together to fix the grayed-out Wi-Fi problem on your iPhone, and I’ll be around to answer your questions as they arise.

View Comments (174)

  • Hello David, My iphone 7 has suddenly greyed out my wifi button so I can't switch wifi on. Can you please help? Thanks in advance

  • I have an iPhoneX. Wifi was grayed-out and Wifi would only come on momentarily by toggling it on the swipe-down screen. Tried the compressed air into the jack—no luck. I reset the network settings and restarted my phone a couple times. No luck. Reset the network settings again. No luck. Finally just let the phone charge up to 70% and the problem magically resolved. *My phone had died right before losing the Wifi...must have caused the glitch...?
    Goofy phones 🙃

  • Hi guys i noticed my wifi toggle got greyed on my iphone 7. I was worried because it worked perfectly a while ago. The first thing i did was to reset the network settings. After i did that, it still didnt come on so i put the phone off for about 10mins then i blew air into the jack pot and put it back on again. As soon as i did that, it came on😊. I believe this would help

  • Hey I got a iPhone 12 and my wifi is grayed out and does not let me turn on wifi what do I do?

  • I have an iPhone 8 Plus and the gray part where you connect it to Wi-Fi doesn’t work at all. I tried rest the settings and it still doesn’t work. And can’t even download apps from the App Store. What do I do?

  • so basically i didny know what happend to my phone and my wifi just went grayed out for almost a whole week .

  • my iphone cannot connect to apple ID server. Also i can’t update software due to this, how can i fixed it?

  • my phone wifi isnt working and its an iphone 7 i see now that its not gonna work ever again after doing all these steps and it not working ive been crying because my family isnt gonna buy me a new one and i wont be able to text anyone or do anything

  • I smashed my iPhone 12 Mini and the WiFi icon has been greyed out. It still lets me use data (I’m not sure if that’s relevant). When I smashed my screen, a section of my screen has turned completely white where the phone struck the floor. Is this a problem with the antenna or is this something else?

    • Hi Jack! It sounds like a hardware component of your iPhone's display has been damaged. I'd suggest reaching out to Apple Support directly for a free diagnosis and repair quote. A licensed Apple Technician is really the safest bet for resolving issues like this. Thanks for reading!

  • I have an iPhone 8 Plus that has slight water damage. I don't know what happened as i received it second hand. The Wi-Fi toggle is grayed out and Bluetooth won't connect. Does that mean it's just the Wi-Fi antenna and I need to replace that?

      • So I checked for water damage in the SIM card slot and it is still white unlike the white sticker near the Wi-Fi antenna. I did do a lot of research to make sure that the antenna is the problem, since none of the problems that could cause the gray out are unlikely such as if it was the logic board the battery itself wouldn't charge. Actually, none of the symptoms of water damage to the logic board are showing. And I did try the freezer trick although I don't recommend it since it would damage the battery; 15-20 minutes wont do a lot of damage but if it was the Wi-Fi chip itself the freezer trick would have work even for a little while. Which is why I believe that the cause of the problem is the Wi-Fi antenna and there was only water damage to that area.

        • Hi Sandra! Thanks for all this information. It sounds like you've put a lot of work into troubleshooting this issue, awesome job! The best advice I have for you moving forward is to reach out to Apple Support directly. With specific problems such as this, a licensed Apple technician is really your best bet for getting the problem squared away.

          I'm sorry we couldn't be of more help, best of luck getting this squared away!

  • Hi! I had the problem of my iPhone 8 Plus disabling my Wi-Fi capabilities. When i turned off my “Hey Siri” in Settings, it automatically turned it back on. I had turned on “Hey Siri” the night before and didn’t think that is what caused it but the Wi-Fi stopped almost as soon as I did that and turned back on as soon as I cut it off. I hope it’s that easy of a fix for some of you!

  • Ive had my iphone 7 for a year and the first year was fine, lately i have noticed that my wifi has not been working and my wifi would work for like an hour then after it greys out i have resetted my phone and it still doesnt work

  • I reset my network settings 6 times, and each time it didn't work. Sometimes it would only work for a few minutes then stop. Finally, I put my phone in the freezer for 15 minutes, but still it wasn't working. So i did the network reset one more time and it worked. It has been doing fine for the past few hours, at least. So maybe try the freezer trick, and THEN rest your network. Hope this helps someone because I know how frustrated I was getting

    • Hi Faith, well that is an unconventional solution! We certainly can't recommend it, but we wanted to approve this comment in case anyone else has nothing left to lose and wants to freeze their technology. Sometimes we'd like to freeze our phones as well.

  • i’ve tried everything including the freezer thing, it’s still greyed out and doesn’t let me do anything. if anyone has any other ideas on what to do please help! it’s driving me mad. i’ve tried resetting network settings and resetting all settings i’ve tried turning my phone off and on multiple times and tried toggling airplane mode on and off nothing works.

  • I tried the freezer thing and it restored back the wifi for about 20 mins then i lost connection tried restarting and its greyed out again.

  • Wifi area was grey on and off for a few days which i fixed by restarting the phone. Now , that's not working. I tried opening the reset button (in general settings) but nothings opening ie reset but isn't working. I don't want to do a factory reset as yet. Anything else I can try? Thanks

  • my wifi isn't working, i tried all of the options but still not working... should i reformat my phone..??

  • Didn't have to heat it up, just went straight to the freezer for about 20 mins total. The wifi button wasn't immediately available, had to restart--then I was Shocked that it worked. WiFi's back. That's after trying all the software fixes--resetting network settings and a full DFU restore. Never would've thought to freeze it. Not sure how it works, so I'm a bit skeptical of the longevity of the solution. Hope it lasts!

    • Yeah, putting your phone in the freezer isn't that great for your battery. Exposing your battery to extreme temperatures for long periods of time can be bad for it. If it was only for 20 minutes, it should probably be fine.

      • I was about to go to the Phone store to replace my iPhone 8 plus, but I decided to try this as a last ditch effort and it worked! Battery status went to 1% so I was a little scared but I plugged in and it started charging so I restarted the phone and my wifi button was on. The phone warmed up and battery went right back to pre-freezer level. Let's hope the fix is permanent! Thank you very much.

  • Resetting the network setting solves the greyed out button promblem and now it turns on but now i have a new problem my iphone is not showing any wifi networks pls help?

  • I heated up my iPhone with a hairdryer until it said it was overheated then stuck it in the freezer for 10/15 mins.
    it worked. Flipping awesome. Thank you!!!

    • I just did the hairdryer & freezer too and it worked, I also did all of the re-boots so could be a combination of things.

        • I'm glad this method worked for some of you, but please be careful when exposing your phone to extreme temperatures, hot and cold alike. These temperatures can harm your iPhone's battery if exposed to them long enough!

  • My iPhone 8 Plus is just a year old. The WIFI button is completely unresponsive. I've tried rebooting and a factory reset

  • Didn’t Work, but to be fair there is a cracked screen with worse damage at the bottom left corner?! I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I’m just trying to fix it so I can sell it, I have too many iPhones pilling up, I don’t want to get far behind, ya know?
    also my REAL QUESTION WAS ABOUT MAC-Book Pros? Do you have experience with them? Do you have a web page with any tutorials on how to use it to it’s potential? It’s my first APPLE “COMPUTER” EVERYTHING ELSE IS APPLE OF COURSE, I wait till the very last minute to spring for laptop.’
    THANKS AGAIN, thank you for what you do, it very comforting knowing you have direct experience.
    thabks again, & any workshops, Tips or how to videos will be watched with great appreciation!!
    thanks!!
    Sean- Michael
    -Boston

  • This was the first and most informative article i found on this issue, it was very well written and honestly a godsend ??

  • if you swipe up from the bottom and pull up your quick menu(with flashlight, wifi, airdrop etc) and hit the airdrop button then contacts only it automatically turns on your WiFi for you. Now mine works but it still says WiFi off but it does work. It's better then paying for repairs or a new phone.

  • Hi David, my iphone 6s wifi button grayed out. I have Reset my iphone but it doesn’t work, is it cause of hardware damage? Can it be fix?

  • I only just got my iPhone for Christmas and it has just done it my dad cannot afforded another one but I need it when I go out

  • My phone dropped and got cracked and I went to get the screen fixed but, my wifi button will not turn on it will not do anything in settings or when you scroll up.

  • I don't know why, but I just placed my iPhone into the freezer for 15 minutes, and, just like that, the Wifi button is working again!

  • I have an iPhone 8plus and I have had it for about 2 years now and this suddenly just happened to my phone a few days back, I reset my network settings and it didn’t work then I tried it a couple of more times again just to be sure and then it worked! Yay! So guys try resetting your networking settings a few times if it doesn’t work the first time

  • I have an iphone 4s and the Wifi is greyed out and the bluetooth has a spinning wheel I tried doing hte hair dryer trick but it didn't work and I tried reseting it too and getting a new phone is pretty expensive so what should i do?

  • I have an iPhone 8 and I noticed this same issue. I dont have a headphone port, so where do I clean? I tried resetting the network settings and nothing. I tried holding the side button and home button but all it gave me was a screen shot. And yes I know how to do that reset because on all my other iPhones it worked. I dont think that works for the iPhone 8. And yes I held for a long long time and nothing happened. I guess Im screwed. :(

  • After reading this article, I blew into the headphone jack, turned my phone off and on and the wifi woks perfectly.

  • Hi David,
    I tried putting my iPhone 7 plus in the freezer twice and both times the wifi worked when I brought it out, however shortly after, it restarts by itself and wifi goes back to grey. Any other suggestions?

  • Thanks for the post. Guess that I have the hardware issue now. My iphone cannot connect to wifi and wifi button just grayed-out.

    I try to contact Apple support but they recommend me to back up data before going to their service center. And the problem is iCloud back up is not work without wifi connection. While I cannot back up with iTunes.

  • Will you please assist me with my iphone 4 also? I'm having the same issue, the wifi option is greyed out and Bluetooth won't turn on either it just continues to search without any results.
    Thanks, markos

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David Payette: I'm a former Apple employee and the founder of Payette Forward, and I'm here to help you with your iPhone.