iPhone alarm too quiet? How to make it louder

An alarm you can barely hear is worse than none: you trust it, and it lets you sleep on. Usually the fix is one setting, but often not the one people try first, because alarms don’t follow the volume you hear for music and videos.

In short: iPhone alarms have their own volume, separate from media. On iOS 27 it’s the Alarms and Timers slider in Settings, under Sounds & Haptics, which appears when you turn off Match Ringtone Volume (with it on, alarms follow your ringtone volume). On iOS 26 it’s the Ringtone and Alerts slider. Silent mode and Do Not Disturb don’t mute alarms. If the slider is already at the top, more volume isn’t there to find: in our measurements the alarm volume spans only about 13 dB from lowest to highest, so the sound you pick, an uncovered speaker and a backup alarm make more difference.

How do I make my iPhone alarm louder?

Turn up the alarm volume, which isn’t the one you change with the buttons while a video plays: that’s the media volume. Alarms use a volume of their own, the same for every alarm, in Settings under Sounds & Haptics (Apple’s guide):

• iOS 27: with Match Ringtone Volume on, alarms ring at your ringtone volume, so turning your ringtone down turns your alarms down too. Turn it off and an Alarms and Timers slider appears, so you can keep calls quiet and alarms loud.
• iOS 26: alarms share the Ringtone and Alerts slider with your ringtone and notifications. There’s no way to make alarms louder than your ringtone.

As you drag the slider, your iPhone plays a sound at that level. If Change with Buttons is on, the volume buttons change it too whenever nothing is playing, which makes it easy to turn your alarms down by accident. If your alarm seems quieter than it used to be, check the slider before anything else.

Why is my alarm quiet even at full volume?

The alarm volume has a narrow range

We measured it while building Jera. On an iPhone 17 with iOS 27, we played pink noise at the highest level a sound file can hold and read a sound meter app on a second phone, kept at the same spot in a quiet room. Media volume went from 32 dB at its lowest step, barely above the room, to 77 dB at its highest. The alarm, with its slider at the bottom, played at 64 dB, about as loud as media at step 8 of 16. With the slider at the top it played at 77 dB, the same as media at full volume.

So the alarm slider covers about 13 dB. That’s still a real difference: 10 dB more sounds roughly twice as loud.¹ But it means even the lowest alarm volume isn’t quiet, and if yours is at the top and you still sleep through it, the slider has nothing left to give. A phone’s sound meter isn’t calibrated, so take the absolute numbers as approximate; the differences between them are what matter.

The sound itself is quiet

The volume sets how loud the loudest part of a sound can be. How loud the alarm feels depends on the sound. Some are soft by design, like the gentler sounds of a Sleep Schedule’s Wake Up alarm, and a song from your library may start with a quiet intro. A sound that’s steady, bright and repeating is easier to notice than one that’s low, sparse or slow to build. We went through what research says about pitch and pattern in What makes a good alarm sound?

To change it, open the Clock app, tap Edit, tap the alarm, then Sound.

Your iPhone turns it down when you look at it

On iPhones with Face ID, Attention Aware features lower the volume of alerts when the iPhone notices you’re looking at it (Apple’s guide). If your alarm drops in volume as soon as you pick up your iPhone, this may be why. You can turn it off in Settings, under Face ID & Passcode.

Something is covering the speaker

An iPhone lying face down on a mattress, under a pillow or in a thick case sounds muffled. Put it on a hard surface, with its bottom edge, where the speaker is, facing into the room, and check the speaker holes aren’t blocked with lint.

Why did my alarm only vibrate or make no sound?

• The sound is set to None. Then the alarm only vibrates. Choose a sound in the Clock app as above.
• Headphones are connected. Apple says the alarm then plays through the built-in speaker as well as the headphones, and in our tests alarms rang on the iPhone’s speaker with headphones connected, so headphones shouldn’t silence it.
• Silent mode or Do Not Disturb is on. Neither affects the alarm sound, according to Apple. In StandBy, though, alarms don’t vibrate.

What if louder isn’t enough?

Some mornings no volume would have done it. Deep sleep, a short night and the time of day all change how much sound it takes to wake you; we went through the research in Why do I sleep through my alarm? What helps then is a second alarm a few minutes after the first, a different sound, or your iPhone somewhere you have to get up to reach.

If you regularly sleep through alarms that wake everyone else, or never feel rested, it’s worth talking to a doctor.

How Jera handles volume

Jera is a gentle alarm clock for iPhone built on Apple’s AlarmKit, so it rings through silent mode and Focus at your alarm volume, like the Clock app. No app can set or read that volume, Jera included. Each alarm starts quietly and rises along the curve you choose (other ways to get that are in How to make your iPhone alarm get louder gradually) to its peak, a share of your alarm volume, so set the slider to where a full-volume alarm is loud enough. We used the measurements above so that a rise follows the iPhone’s own volume steps, and optional backup alarms ring after it at their own volume, for the mornings the first one isn’t enough.

Jera is designed to support a gentler wake-up. It isn’t a medical device, and if you regularly struggle to wake up or feel unrested, it’s worth talking to a doctor.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my iPhone alarm so quiet?

Usually because the alarm volume is low: it’s separate from media volume, set in Settings under Sounds & Haptics, and Change with Buttons lets the volume buttons lower it by accident. If it’s already at the top, try a louder, brighter sound and make sure nothing covers the speaker.

How do I make my iPhone alarm louder than my ringtone?

On iOS 27, turn off Match Ringtone Volume in Settings, under Sounds & Haptics, and raise the Alarms and Timers slider. On iOS 26, alarms and your ringtone share one slider, so they can’t be set apart.

Does silent mode make my iPhone alarm quieter?

No. Silent mode, the Ring/Silent switch and Do Not Disturb don’t affect the alarm sound. The alarm plays at your alarm volume either way.

Why does my alarm get quieter when I pick up my iPhone?

On iPhones with Face ID, Attention Aware features lower the volume of alerts when you look at the screen. You can turn them off in Settings, under Face ID & Passcode.

Can an app make my alarm louder than the alarm volume?

No. Alarm apps built on AlarmKit play at your iPhone’s alarm volume, which apps can’t change, and a sound file can’t be louder than the highest level it holds.

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