iPhone alarm sound not playing on iOS 26

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.

I have a very similar situation, before the iOS 26 update I would use my phone to play ambience tracks at low volume on a Bluetooth speaker, then the alarm would play on my phone at a higher volume with different tracks rather than Apple default ringtones. iOS 26 forced me to change my sleep routine temporarily, I rather switch to Android to continue my routine rather than continue with this option. I just fully reset my phone, hoping to resolve the problem, but the issue remains. I am thankful I tested the alarms immediately after the update, so I was not surprised the following day. Always test devices immediately after an update, never know what issues will occur.

I will tell you what is on my mind.

I go into haptics. Make sure volume is quite loud. Go into alarm and edit alarm and check the type and use default and it plays - it is also quite loud.

set alarm.

wait for alarm.

alarm goes off at a less than loud level and then immediately in the second sequence of the ringtone goes even quieter.

focus is set to work during this test.

it simply does not work as advertised so be aware until it works again.

almost missed a rental pickup which would have cost a late penalty so not happy at all.

I regularly no longer get any indication my wake alarm is going off other than the screen turning on which obviously isn’t particularly useful. No vibrating on my watch, no sound, nothing. It has happened to my partner as well where one morning neither of our alarms went off. This is an egregious bug and apparently is pretty common. I don’t want to try every conceivable combination of alarm settings to try and fix it (already tried the attention setting and checking the alarm volume). This gotta be fixed and fast. We bought a physical alarm clock bc we apparently can’t rely on our phones performing this very basic function.

I’m thinking the alarm changes in 26.2 might fix this but NOW would be better. The damage this bug can cause in various situations is so high and millions of people have until now been able to rely on using an iPhone as an alarm so why wouldn’t they continue to?

I've noticed that you can continue the Snooze if you click the side button twice now, not just once. If you click twice it will choose snooze and keep the snooze timer going, and alarm again.

Similar here. I use the sleep schedule alarm and the side buttons to snooze (usually the on/off but they used to be the same) I do get the initial alarm, but not the snooze. Now the button appears to mute the alarm but the image on the screen appears to look like the alarm is still going. No additional snooze alarms ever sound. I have to open the clock app for it to register that I am awake.

Exactly @cgilson33! I have the same issue and the scary thing is this looks like a new way it has been designed.

Now with one click to the side button that would snooze the alarm before, it now completely silences the alarm and NEVER gives you another alarm after a snooze period because it is prompting you on the screen to see if you want to snooze it or stop the alarm. This is diabolical and is probably making thousands of people late for work, school, meetings, everything. We have collectively learned that one side button push snoozes the alarm, it doesn't stop the alarm never to return. Fix this Apple!

I experienced this issue tonight. I asked Siri what happened to the alarm and it replied that it had turned them off. I’m not sure why this has happened. I think this was the first system upgrade I’ve done. I guess I’ll have to troubleshoot to see if it works.

This has been happening to me too. I was late for work because it turned the alarm off…

also, what’s up with the volume? Before it would work with the ringer level and now it’s completely doing its own thing, it’s either too low now or blaring. I got such a fright this morning.

I thought I was going crazy that I keep missing my alarm every morning. I’ve been late this entire week and I am so annoyed that they removed this feature. I also press the side buttons and this makes the phone alarm for me useless now. Gonna get an oldschool clock to fix this. Thanks for nothing apple

This just happened to me on my Air on OS26. I woke up late this morning to the alarm going off on my phone but no sound playing.

This is super frustrating as in Silent Mode it says alarms will play, and it did flawlessly in OS18 with no issues.

Glad I found this this morning. This has happened to me ever since I updated my phone. I’m a button snoozer so literally every morning I’ll press the side button to snooze out of force of habit. I’ve woken up an hour late three times now and the alarm screen is just sitting open with the option to snooze. I really hope Apple brings back the snooze toggle with side buttons.

Seeing this issue as well. Never had a problem with the alarm until iOS 26. Woke up late on my own to my phone showing the options to snooze or stop the alarm. I have an iPhone 14 Pro and Watch Ultra 3. The watch was also showing the same snooze or stop options but completely silent and no haptic taps either. I don’t know what I did to completely silence the alarm instead of snoozing it. This should be reverted to the previous behavior which didn’t lead to this state of a muted active alarm which is pretty useless.