iPhone alarm sound not playing on iOS 26

Third update for me on this thread; I raised the volume bar one notch, and now the alarm plays. So essentially the update lowered the volume bars a notch. All the way down volume used to still give me a low-volume song being played on alarms, but now it makes it all the way silent. Up two notches now gives me the same volume that I used to get with it turned all the way down. Doesn’t make much sense to me as to why anyone would want “silent” as an option, unless you’re hoping that the light from your phone screen wakes you up or something but that seems ridiculous.

Another issue I noticed is that if you have headphones, AirPods, or other Bluetooth devices connected, the alarm will play through the headphones instead of the phone's internal speaker. This is an issue because sometimes I fall asleep with an AirPod in, but it is not in my ear in the morning. On iOS 18, that was not an issue because the phone would play the alarm; however, today it was playing through the earbuds, and I was late getting up.

My solution until Apple decides to fix it, is to disable the standby mode. Standby mode was causing the problems with my volume and power buttons not acting as snooze buttons and instead just silencing the alarm forever. With standby disabled, the alarm acts like it used to and the buttons all work as snooze buttons (at least for me it has worked)

I found this thread because I am having the same issue. I use earbuds plugged into the iPhone 15’s USB-C port to listen to a podcast at night. During sleep, the earbuds come out, of course (which is why I use wired ones). On iOS 18 and earlier, my alarm would sound through the iPhone even though the earbuds were still plugged in. After upgrading to iOS 26, the alarm sound stopped going through the iPhone speakers. Luckily, I sleep with the iPhone on the bed, so the vibration wakes me up. Note: I use the “Pick a song” option instead of the default Apple ringtones.

Here is what I discovered. If I use the default Apple alarm/ringtones, they play on both the iPhone and the Earbuds. If I decide to use a song from my own library, the sound does not come through the iPhone speakers as it used to; it only comes through the earbuds, which by morning are somewhere else other than in my ears, but still plugged into the iPhone. I am going to report this as a bug to Apple. I hope if enough of us do that they will fix it back to what it was pre-2026.

Problem: Missed my alarm this morning. The update to iOS 26.3.1 (23D8133) caused all of my alarms to be silent and no haptics to vibrate the phone.

I need the haptics to vibrate the phone and the audible alarm to be silent in several routine situations.

I need to hear the audible alarm and no other sounds in several other routine situations.

Solution: If I manually re-create each alarm with the same settings it works. Fingers crossed that it will be a stable solution.

iPhone SE - latest edition.

I just wrote this and see Suzay has already posted this.

I have the solution and root cause of the problem. Anytime your phone connects via bluetooth, ringer will be made to zero sound. This is due to the coding so the car speakers play the ringer, not the phone.

Solution- raise ringer volume via side buttons each time disconnecting from bluetooth devices, such as a car.

I find out : clock- alarm settings- sound- haptics- None. And alarm will start working again.

I found that deleting all alarms and redoing it works. For me that is.

I’ve had this issue too. I used to snooze my alarm by clicking the on/off switch when I was too tired to look at the screen. But I worked out this morning that clicking the on/off switch now mutes the alarm. Bit annoying that I have to unlearn that muscle memory now

I had the same on my iPhone 13 Pro Max.

It was fixed after turning off Attention-Aware Features. You can find it in Settings —> Face ID & Passcode —> Attention-Aware Features.

Hope it works for you too.

Update: I turned it back on and the sound sill works.

On iOS 26.0.1 iPhone 16 pro max but affects all iPhones, there is a bug related to Face ID and the setting “Attention Aware Features” and the volume of alarms. If enabled while looking at the phone the volume of alarms in the clock are low, half volume or less.

Turning off “Attention Aware Features” fixes the issue.

It just happened to me yesterday. Noticed the volume was at its lowest. I didn’t have any alarms set for Sunday but I tried turning the volume up and it kept going to the lowest setting. I hard reset and it went back to normal until this morning. Both my alarms volume was low to no noise and I was late for work. I tried hard resting again. But I can’t afford to be late to work. Apple fix this ASAP. TO ADD TO THIS MY AWARENESS IS OFF AS WELL AS FOCUS. So this is a major issue that NEEDS TO BE FIXED. it’s costing millions of people to miss work and wages.

jpmcauley wrote:

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Just fix it. It's simple. You don't have to complicate it. Give the alarm/clock it's own volume setting that can be handled right in the app and have no other setting or volume control affect it. That way when I look at my phone at night, I can clearly see that the alarm is set and the volume is set where I know it will work.

Either buy a third party alarm app that will usually utilise media volume, or ask for your idea here https://apple.com/feedback

IOS 26.1 This problem of alarm sounds not audibly heard if at all has been resolved with Face ID “Attention Aware Features”. Alarms now play at full volume regardless of the setting on or off.

On iOS 26.0.1 iPhone 16 pro max but affects all iPhones, there is a bug related to Face ID and the setting “Attention Aware Features” and the volume of alarms. If enabled while looking at the phone the volume of alarms in the clock are low, half volume or less.

Turning off “Attention Aware Features” fixes the issue.