iPhone 15 battery replacement: interactive 3D teardown

All 9 steps

1. 1Power off and unplug the phone

   With the battery below 25%, hold the side button and either volume button, slide the control to power off and pull the USB-C cable out. Then turn the phone over and lay it screen down on a clean, soft part of the mat, its USB-C port towards you: everything from here on is done through the back.

2. 2Remove the two P2 pentalobe screws

   Turn out the two P2 pentalobe screws in the bottom edge, one each side of the USB-C port, and lay them in wells 1 and 2 of the magnetic tray. On the iPhone 15 both are 7.7 mm long; neither glass panel will come away while they are in.

3. 3Warm the back glass round its edges

   Lay the warm heat pad along the bottom edge of the back glass, then the right edge, the left and the top, where it drapes over the camera plateau, about 2 minutes in all, until the glass is too hot to hold a finger on: about 65 °C by our estimate. The heat softens the adhesive round the glass. Do not go much hotter: the battery lies just beneath it.

4. 4Lift the back glass and slide a pick round it trap

   Press the suction cup onto the back glass just above the USB-C port and pull up steadily until a thin gap opens, then slip a pick into it. Slide it along the bottom edge, no deeper than 5 mm, round the corner and up the right edge, 7 mm, and stop below the volume buttons: the back glass’s cable runs beside them. Then work the other way: round the bottom left corner, up the left edge at 5 mm, along the top at 3 mm until its two clips let go, round the top right corner and down at 4 mm to the volume-up button. Avoid this trap: Older iPhones, and the iPhone 14 Pro, come open from the front for a new battery, so it is tempting to turn the phone over, heat the screen and pry it up. On the iPhone 15 that only puts the screen at risk: a pick pushed deep under its edge and twisted bends the thin OLED panel until it cracks, and its two cables along the edge are easily torn. And the battery is not there: it lies on the other side of the midplate, under the back glass, and from the front its connector cannot even be reached. Open the back glass.

5. 5Swing the back glass open to the right trap

   Take the picks out and swing the back glass open to the right, towards the volume buttons, like the cover of a book, until it lies face down on the foam block beside the phone. Its one short cable, from the MagSafe and charging coil on its underside, loops over the right edge to the logic board; resting level on the block, the glass pulls on nothing. Avoid this trap: The back glass is tied to the phone by a single short flex cable, from its MagSafe and charging coil to the logic board, and it leaves the glass at the right edge, by the volume buttons. Lift the glass by that edge and fold it over to the left, as a book opens the other way, and the cable is pulled across the width of the phone: it goes taut within the first few degrees and tears. MagSafe and wireless charging stop working, and the cable is part of the back glass, so only a new one fixes it. Swing the glass to the right, over its cable.

6. 6Remove the lower connector cover

   Turn out the two 1.3 mm Y000 tri-point screws of the steel cover over the battery connector, on the logic board below the volume buttons, into wells 3 and 4. Then push the cover about 1 mm towards the top of the phone with the tweezers to unhook it, tip it up and lift it away.

7. 7Disconnect the battery, then the back glass

   Lever the battery’s press connector straight up off its socket with the flat end of the nylon spudger: with it off, nothing in the phone is live. Then turn out the 0.9 mm Y000 screw of the small cover above it into well 5, push that cover towards the bottom of the phone to unclip its top edge and lift it off, and pry up the press connector of the back glass’s coil cable. The glass is free: slide it clear of the phone on its block.

8. 8Pull the battery’s two adhesive strips

   Slide a pick under the battery’s cable to free it from the light adhesive that holds it down on the logic board. Then peel up the first of the two black tabs at the battery’s top edge, wind it round the tweezers and draw it slowly towards the top of the phone at a low angle, about 20°, just enough to clear the camera: the strip stretches to several times its length, thins and slides out from under the battery. Pull the second the same way.

9. 9Lift the battery out

   With both strips out the battery lies loose: lift it straight up by its edges, without bending it, and lay it on the mat away from the phone. A battery that is swollen, dented or warm goes outside on a non-flammable surface, and every old one to a battery recycling point, never in the bin. Press Reassemble to fit the new battery and close the phone.

What you need

• P2 pentalobe screwdriver · for the two bottom screws
• Y000 tri-point screwdriver · for the three cover screws
• Heat pad or hair dryer · to about 65 °C
• Suction cup lifter and thin plastic picks · marked at 3, 5 and 7 mm
• Nylon spudger and blunt ESD-safe tweezers · no metal near the battery
• A block of foam about 8 mm high · to rest the open back glass on
• A magnetic screw tray · a well for every screw
• Replacement battery and back glass adhesive · and isopropyl alcohol, 90% or stronger

Questions

Safety

Run the battery below 25% and power the phone off before you start. Never puncture, bend or pry the battery with metal; if it swells, smokes or gets hot, stop, move it onto a non-flammable surface and keep away from the fumes.

• 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 our own model of an iPhone 15, built to Apple’s published size (147.6 × 71.6 × 7.80 mm) with its parts where Apple’s internal view of the phone shows them, and no logo or printing of Apple’s on it. Its back glass comes off on its own, so the battery is changed from the back and the screen is left alone. The order, the screws and their lengths, the pick depths and the connectors follow iFixit’s iPhone 15 battery guide and Apple’s own repair manual: two P2 screws, the glass swung open to the right on its cable, the lower cover’s two Y000 screws, the battery unplugged before the coil cable, and two stretch-release strips.

Where the brief for this teardown differed from the phone, the phone decided. Its P2 screws are 7.7 mm long, not 6.8 mm. The back glass is tied to the phone by its cable at the right edge, seen from the back, by the volume buttons, so it swings open to the right; folding it over to the left is the mistake that tears the cable, not the other way round. The lower cover’s two Y000 screws are both 1.3 mm, not 1.3 and 1.6 mm, and a second, smaller cover with one 0.9 mm screw holds the coil cable’s connector: five screws in all, not four. Both adhesive strips have their tabs at the battery’s top edge and are pulled towards the top, not one at each end.

Our estimates, not measured figures: the 65 °C and 2 minutes of heat (the repair guides give no figure), the pulling angle of about 20°, the lowest that clears the camera above the battery, the positions of the buttons, and the sizes of the parts inside, read off photographs. The capacity, 3,349 mAh and 12.98 Wh, is the battery’s published rating. The 3D runs faster than real hands do.

Sources: iFixit: iPhone 15 Battery Replacement, iFixit: iPhone 15 Screen Replacement (the screen’s cables, the battery out of reach from the front), iFixit: iPhone 15 (size, battery capacity, guides), Apple: iPhone 15 Back Glass, repair manual, Apple: iPhone 15 Battery, repair manual, Apple: iPhone 15 internal view, Apple: iPhone 15 technical specifications, Macworld: iPhone battery capacities (iPhone 15, 3,349 mAh, 12.98 Wh), Price source: iFixit, iPhone 15 battery fix kit, $49.99 (October 2026), Price source: Apple, out-of-warranty battery service, $99 for the iPhone 15 (October 2026).

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