How To Restore Kindle Fire To Factory Settings

How to Factory Reset Your Kindle Fire

Having trouble with your Amazon Kindle Fire tablet? Here's how to factory reset the Kindle Fire to clear up any issues.

When your Amazon Kindle Fire suffers from random errors, a reset may be the only way to resolve the issue. But how do you reset your Kindle Fire and what does that do? Let's find out.

How to Soft Reset Your Kindle Fire

Before you attempt to factory reset your Amazon Fire, you should try a soft reset. A soft reset simply reboots your Fire Tablet; all your data and settings will remain intact. Use this when your device shows minor symptoms or has frozen up.

To soft reset your Kindle Fire, press and hold both the Volume Down and Power buttons until the device shuts down. This should take no longer than 10-15 seconds. If it asks for confirmation to power off, press OK.

If you have a first to fourth-generation Kindle Fire, press and hold only the Power button to shut down the device.

After the device has turned off, boot it up and see if the issue has disappeared.

How to Factory Reset Your Kindle Fire

When the issue persists after a soft reset, you can try a hard reset to restore your Fire Tablet to factory settings. A factory reset will wipe all your data, apps, and personal information from your Amazon Fire, so be sure to prepare a backup first (find this at Settings > Device Options > Backup & Restore).

Note: Your Kindle needs at least a 30 percent charge before you can initiate a factory reset.

To hard reset your Kindle Fire from within Fire OS, go to Settings > Device Options > Reset to Factory Defaults. Read the warnings and press Reset to initiate the process. Your Kindle Fire will immediately reboot and erase all content.

To factory reset an Amazon Fire without booting into Fire OS---useful if your device doesn't start up properly anymore---follow these steps:

If your Kindle Fire is still running, turn it off.
Now press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons.
After a few seconds, your Kindle will boot into the Amazon system recovery screen.
Use the Volume buttons to navigate to the wipe data/factory reset option.
Press the Power button to proceed.
Again, use the Volume buttons to select the Yes -- delete all user data option.
Press the Power button to confirm.

Note: First and second-generation Kindle Fires don't respond to a physical hard reset. Your only option for a factory reset is to boot into Fire OS and go through the Settings menu.

Your Kindle Fire, Restored

With your Kindle Fire restored to factory settings, any issues should be resolved. If you made a backup, you can now restore it via Settings > Device Options > Backup & Restore.

By the way, did you know you can remove ads from your lock screen and install Google Play on your Kindle Fire?

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