Couple of days ago a strange thing happened to me. My iPhone battery was depleting so i put it on charging and slept. When i woke up i was surprised to see that the iPhone was dead and the screen was blank even though the charger was connected to my macbook usb port properly but the iPhone not charging at all.
Maybe it was the iphone not charging properly due to charger problem or maybe iphone battery issue, or maybe some other issue caused my iPhone to stop charging. Anyway i tried moving it away and put it on charging with the wall 
Finally i solved it ! Yay! today! Infact right now my charger is charging up successfully while i am writing this article! On this page i will enlist some of the ways how you can get out of this iphone not charging situation. The way i solved it and the ways that worked for other people too just in case if your problem and cause was different.
If your iPhone is not charging and you want to solve it (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4), follow these troubleshooting steps. Hopefully your problem will be solved (starting from simple non costly steps and so on).
iPhone not charging – How to fix
1. Restart your iPhone if not charging
The simplest step and fixes the iphone not charging issue for most of the people.
The steps are:
- plug in the charger
- press home and power button for few seconds until it restarts
It might solve the issue in most cases. (didn’t work for me though!)
2. Clean your iphone charging port and retry
If the above step don’t solve your problem of iphone being dead and not charging, now it’s time to try out various ways of charging. But before that clean your charger as:
- Blow (with air from your mouth) gently the charger wires both end.
- Blow and clean the iPhone charger socket.
- Blow the computer / laptop’s usb port
- Blow clean the wall charger usb slot
Once you have cleaned your iPhone charger and all slot ends do this and check for charging:
- Connect the iPhone via usb charger wire to your macbook / laptop / usual computer (try both usb ports)
- If the above don’t work, connect the wall socket charger
- Try connecting to another computer or laptop via usb port.
Also try turning off the iPhone and then charging (it helps in most cases – provided that the charger is not defected)
3. Cross test iPhone
If none of the above ways work, then finally try using your currrent charger and iPhone charger wire with some other iPhone (any friends iPhone or at the shop) to confirm that the problem is with the charger and not the iPhone.
4. Change / remove sim from your iphone
Try charging after removing the sim card or replacing it with another sim card (of some other network preferably) and see if it solves the issue.
5. Charger and charging wire of iphone
If you can’t get another iPhone to test your charger, then another alternate could be trying a new charger wire before buying a new iPhone battery or an iPhone itself!
This is how it will go:
- Goto the shop to get a new charger, but before that, ask them to let you try it on your iPhone. You can ask them to let you use any in use charger first to confirm if the problem is with the charger wire and not the iPhone itself or its battery.
- If you have or can try out, then find a car charger for iPhone 3G/3Gs (also works with 2G). This is the way that i tested and solved my iPhone not charging and only showing the battery cell when connected to charging. I put the the iPhone on charger with the car charger for iPhone and press home + power button which lead to full black screen from the previous battery and power sign. After some 10 minutes i pressed the power button and the Apple logo appeared! voila! :D
- If you finally find out that the different charger is working for your iPhone, then definitely buy a nice charger and you are all good to go! (you can ask me if you need a new charger (simple or car charger for iPhone) in Pakistan (islamabad/rawalpindi specially). Can ship internationally too but might cost you abit more.
Update: One thing that i just noticed is that once the iPhone starts charging from other charger (car charger) now it also works fine with the previous supposed broken charger too! :)
You can also buy the charger from from amazon by clicking the image to the right.
6. Change the battery of iphone that’s not charging
If none of the above ways work for you, then one option is to change your iPhone battery. Please note that while doing this make sure that the person doing this is skilled in this job otherwise you will have to buy a whole new iPhone as in next step.
7. Buy a new iPhone
Self explanatory!
Hopefully your iPhone not charging and battery depleted error will be solved by these troubleshoot steps. This might not only work for iPhone ( 2G/3G and 3Gs ) but also Apple iPad and iPod.
Update: will also work for iphone 5 and iphone 6 / iphone 6 plus charger issues.
Tip: turning on iTunes while iPhone is connected sometimes gets the iPhone to start charging normally