iPhone 13 screen and battery replacement: interactive 3D teardown

All 9 steps

1. 1Power off and remove the two P2 screws

   Switch the phone off (hold the side button and either volume button, then slide) and unplug its cable. Turn the two P2 pentalobe screws out of the bottom edge, one each side of the charging port: both are 6.8 mm long and hold the bottom of the screen to the frame. Lay them in wells 1 and 2 of the magnetic tray.

2. 2Warm the screen’s edges

   Lay the warm heat pad along each edge of the screen in turn: the bottom, the side-button edge, the top and then the volume-button edge, until the glass there feels slightly too hot to touch. The heat softens the adhesive seal that holds the screen in the frame. A hair dryer kept moving along the edge does the same; never hold heat on one spot, as the battery lies right under the screen.

3. 3Lift a gap and slide a pick under the bezel

   Press the suction cup onto the glass just above the bottom edge and pull up with a firm, steady pull until a hairline gap opens. Slide the tip of an opening pick into it, under the screen’s black plastic bezel, never into the seam between that bezel and the display panel, and no further than its 3 mm mark. Then let go of the cup and pull it off.

4. 4Cut round the seal and open the screen like a book trap

   Slide the pick round the bottom right corner and up the side-button edge, no deeper than 3 mm, then round the top right corner and along the top edge, still at 3 mm: the front sensors sit just behind it. At the top left corner turn the pick down the volume-button edge and keep it to 2 mm, where the display cable and the front sensor flex fold under the screen. Slide the foam block up to the phone and swing the screen up from the side-button edge and over, like a book’s front cover, until it leans on the block. Its cables are still plugged in. Avoid this trap: The display cable and the front sensor flex both leave the screen just inside its volume-button edge and fold down to the logic board there, with only a little slack. Swing the screen on past upright, with nothing to lean on, and the thinnest of them, the front sensor flex, pulls tight over the frame and tears. That flex carries the ambient light sensor, the proximity sensor and a microphone, and iFixit lists the assembly as paired to the logic board and part of Face ID: torn, auto-brightness and the proximity sensor go, and Face ID with them, and a new flex does not bring Face ID back. Lean the screen on the block, just past upright.

5. 5Unplug the battery first, then the display

   Turn out the lower cowling’s three Phillips #00 screws, all 1.3 mm long, into wells 3 to 5, and lift the steel cowling off the battery and display connectors with tweezers. With the flat end of the nylon spudger, lever the battery’s connector straight up off its socket before any other cable, and bend it back a little so it cannot touch the socket again: nothing in the phone is live now. Then lever the display cable’s connector up the same way.

6. 6Take off the upper cowling and lift the screen away trap

   The upper cowling, near the top of the volume-button edge, holds the front sensor flex’s connector down with three screws of three lengths: a 1.7 mm and a 1.3 mm Phillips #00 and a 1.8 mm Y000. Turn each into its own well, 6, 7 and 8. Tilt the cowling up from the middle of the phone until the clip at its edge lets go, and slide it out from under the front sensor flex. Lever the flex’s connector up with the spudger: the screen is free. Lift it away, lay it face down on the mat, and peel the cut adhesive off the frame’s rim. Avoid this trap: The upper cowling’s two Phillips screws look the same, but one is 1.7 mm long and the other 1.3 mm. Put the long one in the short one’s hole and it turns in as normal until its last 0.4 mm, which has nowhere to go but into the logic board under the cowling: it can crack the board or cut a track in it, and the damage may only show later. Keep each screw in the well printed with its length, and put it back in its own hole.

7. 7Lift the front sensor assembly out of the old screen

   A new screen sold without the front sensor assembly needs the original moved across. On the old screen’s back, turn out the sensor bracket’s three Y000 screws, each 1.4 mm long, into wells 9 to 11, and lift the bracket off. Warm the top of the screen’s back for about two minutes. Ease the ambient light sensor and then the proximity sensor out of their recesses with a pick, free the microphone, the small metal rectangle, and slide the pick under the rest to lift the assembly out. Set it down beside the new screen.

8. 8Unscrew the loudspeaker and lift it out

   The loudspeaker sits under the battery’s bottom edge, beside the charging port. Turn out its four Phillips #00 screws, all 1.7 mm long, into wells 12 to 15, and lift it out with tweezers. With it out of the way, the battery’s two bottom strips can be drawn out low and flat, as both Apple’s procedure and iFixit’s guide do it.

9. 9Pull the battery’s four adhesive strips trap

   Four stretch-release strips hold the battery to the case, two at its bottom edge and two at its top, each with a black pull tab lightly stuck to the battery’s edge. Peel each tab off with blunt tweezers, wind it round their tips and draw the strip out slowly, low and flat, never up over an edge: the bottom right one towards the bottom of the phone, the bottom left one towards the bottom and away from the Taptic Engine, then the two top ones towards the top, in the channel by the camera. Steady the battery as the last one lets go, and lift it out. Avoid this trap: Drawn up at a steep angle, the bottom left strip catches on the Taptic Engine’s edge and snaps, leaving most of it stuck under the battery. Reaching for a metal screwdriver to lever the battery out is the worse mistake: its blade dents the soft pouch, and a punctured lithium-ion cell can smoke and catch fire. Pull every strip low and flat, away from the Taptic Engine. If one snaps, pull the others first, then let a few drops of 90% isopropyl alcohol soften the adhesive under that edge and lift gently with a plastic pick, never metal. If all four break, stop and take it to a repair shop.

What you need

• P2 pentalobe screwdriver · for the two bottom screws
• Phillips #00 and Y000 tri-point screwdrivers · for the cowlings, the bracket and the loudspeaker
• Heat pad or hair dryer · until the glass is slightly too hot to touch
• Suction cup lifter and plastic opening picks · marked at 2 and 3 mm
• Nylon spudger and blunt ESD-safe tweezers · no metal near the battery
• A foam block and a magnetic screw tray · to lean the screen on; a well for every screw
• Replacement screen, battery and screen seal · and isopropyl alcohol, 90% or stronger

Questions

Safety

Run the battery below 25%, switch the phone off and unplug it before you start, and unplug the battery before any other cable. Keep metal tools away from the battery and never pry, bend or press on it; if it swells, smokes or gets hot, stop and move the phone onto a non-flammable surface. Tape over cracked glass and wear safety glasses.

• Lithium-ion batteries: never bend, puncture or pry a battery with metal. A damaged cell can go into thermal runaway: it smokes, catches fire and can explode. Discharge it below 25% first; if it swells, hisses, smokes or gets hot, stop and move it somewhere safe.
• Static (ESD): work on an anti-static mat with a grounded wrist strap; a spark you cannot feel can kill a chip.
• Power off: switch the device off and unplug its charger before you open it, and disconnect the battery before touching anything else inside.

About this teardown

3D Spatial Reconstruction: Models are engineered from factual hardware measurements to visualize internal layouts, screw lengths, and hidden cable traps before you open your device. Always verify cable routing on your specific hardware revision.

The phone is Apple’s iPhone 13 (not the 13 mini, 13 Pro or Pro Max), modelled at its published size of 146.7 × 71.5 × 7.65 mm, with its 6.1-inch OLED screen, the notch and the diagonal camera bump drawn plainly, and none of Apple’s logos, names or printing. The order, the screws and the cables follow iFixit’s iPhone 13 screen and battery guides and Apple’s own display, battery and bottom speaker procedures for this model: two 6.8 mm P2 screws, a pick kept to 3 mm and to 2 mm along the volume-button edge, the screen swung up from its side-button edge over that edge, the battery unplugged first, then the display cable and the front sensor flex.

Where the brief for this teardown differed from the phone, the phone decided. It named four screw lengths on the lower display bracket; the lower cowling’s three screws are all 1.3 mm, and the lengths to keep apart are the upper cowling’s: a 1.7 mm and a 1.3 mm Phillips and a 1.8 mm Y000. In all, fifteen screws come out in five lengths (1.3, 1.4, 1.7, 1.8 and 6.8 mm), and a Phillips #00 driver is needed besides the P2 and the Y000. It gave 85° as the angle that tears the sensor flex; no source gives an angle. iFixit has the open screen leant against something with its cables still plugged in, Apple’s fixture holds it up on suction cups, and iDoc warns against opening it too far while the cables are attached, so our model leans it on a foam block just past upright, at 95°, and the trap swings it on to 150°. The brittle strips near the Taptic Engine are the battery’s two bottom ones: the loudspeaker comes out first, as in Apple’s procedure, so that they can be drawn out low, the bottom left one away from the Taptic Engine.

The front sensor assembly carries the ambient light sensor, the proximity sensor and a microphone (iFixit’s guide). iFixit’s listings for this screen and for the cable say it is paired to the logic board and holds the flood illuminator, part of Face ID: damaged or replaced, Face ID stops, and a new cable does not bring it back. (Its 2021 teardown found Face ID still working with the assembly unplugged.) The rest of Face ID stays in the frame. On iOS 15.0 and 15.1 any screen replacement turned Face ID off; from iOS 15.2 it does not. On iOS 17.6 and earlier, True Tone and auto-brightness switch off after a screen replacement even with an original Apple screen; on iOS 18 and later, Repair Assistant (Settings, General, About, Parts & Service History) can calibrate a genuine Apple screen and battery.

The screw lengths are iFixit’s; iDoc’s guide measures some of them a tenth of a millimetre shorter. Our estimates, not measured figures: the layout and sizes of the parts inside, where the cowlings, the sockets and the hidden clips sit, the corner radius, the height of the camera bump and the time for both jobs together (iFixit gives 1 to 2 hours for each of its two guides). The 3D runs faster than real hands do.

Sources: iFixit: iPhone 13 Screen Replacement, iFixit: iPhone 13 Battery Replacement, Apple: iPhone 13 Display (repair procedure), Apple: iPhone 13 Battery (repair procedure), Apple: iPhone 13 Bottom Speaker (repair procedure), Apple: iPhone 13 technical specifications, Apple: Use Repair Assistant to finish an iPhone or iPad repair, iFixit: iPhone 13 Screen (listing: the upper sensor assembly, True Tone), iFixit: iPhone 13 Front Sensor Cable (listing: paired, part of Face ID), iFixit: iPhone 13 Battery (listing: 3.84 V, 12.41 Wh, 3227 mAh), iMore: iFixit’s iPhone 13 teardown on Face ID after a screen replacement, iDoc: iPhone 13 battery replacement (the screen opens towards the volume buttons), Price source: iFixit, iPhone 13 screen fix kit from $69.99 (aftermarket LCD; OLED kits cost more) and battery fix kit $45.99 (27 October 2026), Price source: Apple, out-of-warranty estimates for the iPhone 13, screen damage $279 and battery service $89 (27 October 2026).

The 3D models, drawings and text are our own. Apple, iPhone, Face ID, True Tone and Taptic Engine are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which device this teardown is for; iTakeApart is not affiliated with them.