Usually, when your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ encounters an error, it automatically restarts or the culprit app automatically crashes. However, in certain cases, your phone might just freeze and stop responding to any touch inputs. Other times, it might just start behaving weirdly and you might not be able to bring up the power menu to restart the device.

It is in such cases that one has to force restart your Galaxy S8 to solve the issue. A forced restart is just what its name suggests: you are forcing your handset to reboot itself. Since this method can be invoked manually, it works even when your Galaxy S8 has frozen or behaving weirdly for some reason.

Here are the two easy steps that you need to follow to force or hard restart Samsung Galaxy S8.

Step 1: Press and Hold the Power button

Press and hold the good old power button on the right side of your Galaxy S8.

Step 2: Press the Volume Down button

Now, with the Power button pressed, hold down the Volume down button on the left, above the Bixby button as well. Wait for a few seconds — usually around 7-10 seconds and your Galaxy S8 will automatically turn itself off and back on.

Android and Samsung’s own UX has come a long way in terms of stability so its unlikely that your Galaxy S8 or S8+ will straight up freeze. But in case it does, you can force restart the handset by following the above steps to get yourself out of the tricky situation.

Do note here that force/hard restarting your Galaxy S8 is different from factory reset. While the former will restart your Galaxy S8 forcibly, the latter will wipe clean your device and restore it back to its factory state. If you are looking to factory reset your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+, check the article below.

Read: How to Factory Reset Samsung Galaxy S8