How do I change the sound of my alarm?

Waking up to a jarring, unpleasant alarm sound can really put you in a bad mood to start the day. The default iPhone alarm options like Radar or Alarm often have an abrasive, electronic tone that shocks you awake. Research has shown that gentle, melodic alarm tones are a much nicer way to start the morning. According to a study by RMIT University, people who woke up to their favorite song felt happier and more alert than those using a conventional alarm tone. ¹ The key is choosing an alarm sound that isn’t too startling. By customizing your iPhone alarm tones, you can wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

Access the Clock App

To access and edit alarms on an iPhone, you first need to open the Clock app. The Clock app comes pre-installed on iPhones and can be found on the home screen or in the applications folder.

Once you open the Clock app, click on the “Alarm” tab at the bottom of the screen ¹. This will take you to the Alarm section of the Clock app where you can view, edit, add, and delete alarms.

Select the Alarm to Edit

Once you have opened the Clock app and tapped on the Alarm tab, you will see a list of any alarms you currently have set. To edit the sound for a specific alarm:

Tap ‘Edit’ next to the alarm you want to change the sound for. This will open an edit screen for that individual alarm.

For example, if you have alarms set for 7am, 8am, and 9am, and you want to change the sound for the 8am alarm, you would tap ‘Edit’ on the line showing the 8am alarm. This will bring you to a screen where you can adjust various settings like the time, repeat days, label, and sound for just that single alarm.

Now that you have navigated to the edit screen for the specific alarm, you can proceed to changing the sound as described in the next section.

Change the Sound

You can customize the sound that plays for an alarm on your iPhone. Here’s how to change the alarm sound:

1. Tap ‘Sound’ at the top of the alarm details screen. This will open the sounds menu.

2. Browse through the different sounds available and tap one to select it. Your iPhone comes preloaded with a variety of alarm sound options like Radars, Chimes, and more.

3. Once you’ve selected a sound, tap ‘Back’ in the top left corner. This will save the new sound and set it as the alarm.

The sounds menu makes it easy to quickly change the sound your alarm makes. You can choose from soothing chimes for a gentle wake up or more jarring alarm sounds if you’re a heavy sleeper.

Use a Song as the Alarm Sound

You can set any song from your music library as the sound for your iPhone alarm. This allows you to wake up to your favorite music or a soothing track instead of the default alarm noises. Here’s how to select a custom song as your alarm sound on an iPhone:

Open the Clock app and tap on the alarm you want to edit.
Tap on the ‘Sound’ option.

Select ‘Pick a Song’ at the top of the menu.
You will be taken to your music library. Browse and select the desired song.
You can also tap ‘Tones’ to choose from the default iPhone alarm sounds.

Tap ‘Back’ once you’ve picked the song to return to the alarm settings.

The song will now play as the alarm sound at the set time. You can pick different songs for each alarm if needed. Remember you need to have the song downloaded on your iPhone for it to be available as an alarm sound. See this guide for more details on selecting songs for iPhone alarms.

Set the Volume

The volume for each individual alarm can be adjusted separately on the iPhone. To change the volume of a specific alarm:

Open the Clock app and select the alarm you want to edit.
Scroll down and tap “Sound.”
Under the selected sound, there is a volume slider. Drag the slider left to decrease the volume or right to increase it.

You can test the volume by tapping the “Play” button. Adjust the slider until you reach the desired volume level.
Tap “Back” when finished to save the changes.

The volume slider allows you to set the alarm volume anywhere from silent to the maximum volume of your iPhone. This provides complete control over the loudness of each alarm.

If you want to adjust the general volume limit for alarms, you can go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and drag the “Ringtone and Alerts” slider. However, this will affect the volumes of all alarms, not just individual ones.

Setting volumes for each alarm separately is useful if you have multiple alarms for different purposes, like a gentle wake up alarm vs. a louder alarm for when you really need to get up. The customizable volumes give you flexibility and ensure your alarms will function as needed.

Create Alarm Labels

You can name your iPhone alarms for easier identification and organization. This allows you to set distinct labels for each alarm rather than having generic labels like “Alarm 1” or “Alarm 2”.

To name an iPhone alarm:

Open the Clock app and tap on the Alarm tab.
Tap the Edit button in the top left corner.

Select the alarm you want to rename.
Tap on the Label field and type in your custom name for the alarm.
You can use names like “Wake Up Alarm”, “Meeting Alarm”, “Take Medication”, etc. Choose something descriptive.

Tap Save in the top right corner once you have entered your label.

The alarm will now appear with your custom label in the Alarm tab. This makes it easy to identify different alarms at a glance. You can follow the same steps to change the label later if needed.

Naming your alarms is useful for managing multiple alarms, like those for medication or events. Custom labels ensure you know what each alarm is for when it goes off.

Set Snooze

The default iPhone alarm snooze duration is 9 minutes. This means when you hit snooze on an alarm, it will silence for 9 minutes before sounding again. You can customize the snooze duration in the Settings app:

1. Open the Settings app and tap Clock.

2. Under Snooze, select the desired snooze duration such as 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or 20 minutes.

This will change the snooze time for all alarms on your iPhone. Keep in mind that setting a very short snooze duration like 1-3 minutes will result in your alarm going off repeatedly in quick succession once snoozed (source: https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-change-snooze-time-on-iphone). Most people find 9-15 minutes to be an ideal balance for getting a little extra rest without oversleeping.

You can also set each alarm’s Snooze option to “Off” if you want to disable the ability to snooze that specific alarm. This can be useful for alarms that you need to get up for like work or school. Just open the alarm in the Clock app, and toggle “Snooze” to the off position.

Disable/Enable Alarms

It’s easy to quickly turn an alarm on or off on your iPhone. To disable an alarm:

Open the Clock app and tap on the Alarms tab.
Tap Edit in the upper left corner.
Locate the alarm you want to disable and tap on the switch next to it to turn it off.

The switch will turn gray indicating the alarm is disabled. To enable an alarm again, simply tap on the switch again so it turns green.

This allows you to easily toggle an alarm on or off without having to delete the alarm entirely. It’s useful if you only need to disable an alarm for a day or two but want to keep it programmed in your iPhone.

You can also swipe left on an alarm and tap Disable to quickly turn it off. Just tap Enable when you want to turn that alarm back on.

Delete an Alarm

If you have an alarm that you no longer need, you can easily delete it from the Clock app on your iPhone or iPad. Here are the steps to delete an alarm:

Open the Clock app and tap on the Alarms tab.
Tap Edit in the upper left corner.

Swipe left on the alarm you want to delete.
Tap Delete to confirm.

The alarm will be removed from your list of alarms. This is useful for getting rid of any old or unwanted alarms that you may have created in the past. By deleting unnecessary alarms, it helps keep your alarm list clutter-free and manageable.

You can also delete all alarms at once from the Clock app if needed. To do this:

Go to the Alarms tab in the Clock app.
Tap Edit in the upper left corner.

Tap Delete All at the bottom of the screen.
Confirm by tapping Delete [number of] Alarms.

Doing this will remove every single alarm, so only use this if you want to completely clear out your alarm list. With just a few taps, you can easily manage the alarms you need and delete any you no longer want.