iPhone alarm sound not playing on iOS 26

This is my problem exactly! I sleep with a Bluetooth sleep mask/headphones (at a very low volume) and my alarm USED to sound on my phone at full volume regardless of what I was playing. NOW it will only play on my headphones at the super low volume and it’s not enough to wake me up! This is a HUGE shift in how the alarm functions and needs to be restored to the original functionality please! I can’t imagine this isn’t impacting more people!

Has this consistently worked?

my issue is I have the same routine every night. Phone goes on a stand charger and I sleep with my watch on.

my watch vibrates to be my alarm.

twice now since ios26, I’ve had the issue stated here if the alarm screen (big snooze and dismiss buttons) but no alarm. Every other morning it’s worked fine.

Come on, Apple! My alarm would flash light every other day, but not everyday like it used to. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve tried everything suggested on this thread, and can’t seem to find anything on other site.

Subject: Critical iOS Alarm Failure — Loss of Business and Trust

Same here. iOS 26.0.1.

I can’t say I’ve ever been this frustrated or encountered such a failure before. This issue has not only cost us financially but has also damaged our professional reputation.

My partner and I run a medical practice from home. We work long hours serving our community, and this afternoon we both relied on our 3:00 pm alarms to wake from a short rest between clients. Neither alarm went off. We overslept by an hour, arriving thirty minutes late for an important client consultation. We had to reimburse the client and have now lost credibility we’ve worked years to build.

To be frank, I’ve lost trust in Apple. Our entire professional and personal ecosystem runs on Apple — from iPhones, iPads, and Macs to Apple TVs used for client x-ray reviews. I’ve tolerated the growing instability of iOS over the past few years, but a fundamental alarm failure — a problem that feels straight out of 2010 — is unacceptable in 2025.

This isn’t a minor inconvenience. Our alarms are essential to how we run our lives and our business. They structure our 4:30 am starts, client reminders, report preparation, medication schedules, and even basic tasks like timing meals or ending a therapy session. The reliability of iOS alarms has been a cornerstone of our time management — and that reliability is now gone.

This experience has introduced a constant background anxiety where there was once trust. A basic system function that used to quietly support our work now demands constant doubt and double-checking.

I expect Apple to treat this as the serious regression it is.

Cheers,

Tom

I’m on iOS26.1. Along with the described issues here, my alarm behaved weird this morning while scrolling on a social media (can’t remember which one). My alarm messed up with the sounds. It started silent, the social media sound broke through, I opened the alarm app to stop it, and it went with a strange sound, not the one I chose. And this sequence of haptic silent alarm with social media sound breaking through happened several times until I stopped the alarm.

You know, right behind the ability to call 911 for help, having a dependable alarm is probably the most important thing that you can't screw up on the iPhone. Apple is doing this is a major way and whoever the Product Manager is for this part of the product needs to pay attention. The answer is pretty simple.

Have a dedicated sound and volume for just the clock/alarm app. No one in the world ever....EVER....wants to go into their clock app, set an alarm, and have it sit there for hours in the morning looking at them silently while not making a noise. No other volume or setting should affect the alarm that people need to be able to trust to wake up in the morning. You're screwing with people's lives here and if you don't fix it, it will cause them to lose trust in their iPhone. This has happened to me twice now, all on 26 and just today on the 26.01 update.

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.

Same issue. iPhone 13 Pro Max. Updated to 26.1 and the last two days after i wake up late, I look at my phone and the screen says that the alarm should be playing. Today, however, i let it continue to “go off” though it’s doing nothing, and at 6:12am (it was a 6am alarm) the song that i have set for that alarm finally started to play. Bizarre.

Yes, exact same thing I found. I work in technology and I look like an idiot for missing two early meetings in the past week due to this problem. 🤣

Again, my suggestion to Apple would be to have a dedicated volume control for the clock that can’t be affected by any other volume controls. No one should have to worry about this problem in 2025.

Happened to me twice in the last 14 days. At first I thought I just didn’t hear the alarm and overslept but for the second time I’m sure it didn’t beeped at all. I’m having Christmas holidays now so it’s not such a big issue, I’m worried about next week when I’ll have to wake up to work.

iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 26.2

Thanks to the medical partners who expressed my dismay so eloquently. I almost missed a very important MRI appointment. The only reason I woke up was probably anxiety. It certainly wasn’t my iPhone!! My first complaint is that the phone updated itself - my permission wasn’t required. I don’t like that, AT ALL. Seems to me there was another update not all that long ago. They may fix OLD bugs, but they also create NEW ones. I have an iMAC on my desk, an iPad that I use too much, and my iPhone. Please, APPLE, fix the bugs BEFORE forcing an update on us unsuspecting victims!!!

I’m having the same issue (17 pro max, software up to date). Sometimes the alarm works and sometimes it doesn’t. I have the attention aware feature off, all alarms set to max volume, and yet there’s still days I’m waking up late with 5 alarms snoozing in silence. I know the issue isn’t limited to 17’s, but I shouldn’t have to be browsing Amazon for a clock radio after getting a new phone.

I can not fathom, for the life of me, how a trillion dollar tech company can not get an alarm clock to function properly. I’ve had this issue over 3 iPhones for the last 7-8 years. Tried every solution on this and other forums and it persists to this day. I’m about ready to leave the Apple ecosystem because of this one thing. Not because I can’t buy a $20 alarm clock, but because it’s a known issue they obviously keep trying to ignore and instead would rather cram more pixels into a bloated camera bulge akin to a Shawn Michaels crotch stuff.

Could apple let me know how to solve this problem? I am on update 26.3 and I use AirPods at night to fall asleep. Or any earbuds. I’ve slept through alarms several times since December and it’s getting really frustrating. Sometimes the alarm doesn’t play full volume even if I disconnect Bluetooth.

this has been driving me bananas, i missed out on a big hike that i flew to another country for. luckily that flight was late in the day else id have missed the whole trip… Am considering changing back to iOS 18. has anyone else done this? a few other little things about iOS also annoy me but the alarm is a deal breaker (i always sleep with my headphones and they fall off at night and alarm only plays thru headphones)

Same. Though today and yesterday, it was just the timer sound that would ring, but sporadically. I've missed 3 timers going off today, as I water my trees and bushes (due to prolong drought happening here).