iPhone Alarm (So Loud, Turn Down Volume, Alarm During Call)


If you are a heavy sleeper, alarms must be a crucial part of your morning routine; otherwise, it means getting late for work, missing deadlines, or not studying for exams. On the flip side, the ring can be too loud to a point that it may disorient you. If you want your alarm to be effective but still not startle you while you sleep, it is vital to learn the related settings.

So, why is the iPhone alarm so loud? The iPhone alarm is loud since you may have unknowingly increased the ring volume through the clock or sound settings, or there may be bugs in the system. Otherwise, your ring tone may be naturally loud, or your bedtime feature may have a high default sound.

You can go to the settings to reduce the volume, check Sleep/ Wake up properties, or change to a quieter tone to reduce the sound. You can also restart your iPhone or update it to eliminate bugs interfering with the alarm settings.

If you cannot wake up early without your alarm or need reminders during the day, you may need tips to help you set the iPhone volume.

With tight schedules and 24-hour working days, alarms are becoming essential aspects of our daily lives. Although they should be audible enough to wake you up, research shows that extremely loud alarms are unhealthy. If yours is excessive, you may want to know why and how to fix it.

There are two logical explanations why your iPhone alarm is too loud; improper alarm or sound settings and system bugs. You may have mistakenly set a high volume or picked a naturally high volume notification tone that doesn’t ring quietly.

Your Sleep/Wake feature’s volume may also be too loud. You can adjust the sound using the up/ down buttons or the slider or change your ringing tone. Your phone may also have system errors that interfere with the settings, but you can restart your phone or update it to eliminate them.

System bugs are common, especially if your phone runs on outdated software. They can interfere with the ring tone such that your settings don’t save even when you reduce the volume. The only way to solve minor bugs is to restart your iPhone; otherwise, you can check for software updates and install them if this doesn’t work. Doing this should eradicate any issues in the system.

The loud alarm may also be due to improper sound settings on your Clock app. You can go to the alarm settings and check whether you mistakenly increased the volume and reduce it. If the adjustment through the app is tasking, you can set the sound to change using the up/ down buttons. Secondly, some notification tones are usually too loud even after reducing the volume, for which you can switch to a subtler ring tone that is easy to manage.

How Do I Turn Down the Alarm Volume on My iPhone?

iPhone alarms are easy to handle and adjust, even if you are a new user. If you correctly set up the alert, you cannot miss it since it will wake you up on time and complete your set tasks. However, sometimes you want to avoid disturbing other family members by reducing the alarm volume to the lowest audible sound.

To turn down the alarm volume on your iPhone, open the Settings and click the Sounds and Haptics button. Next, adjust the slider under Ringer and Alerts to reduce the volume. Also, note that the volume buttons on your iPhone cannot affect the sound of your alarm unless you set them. The same procedure applies to reducing the ringing volume, but this time, you toggle on the key next to “Change with Buttons” on the same page as Ringer and Alerts.

When reducing the alarm volume, ensure that you adjust it to a level that you can hear but not too loud to wake up people sleeping in the other rooms. Remember to make it audible enough; otherwise, you may easily miss the alert and ruin your entire day. Turning down the iPhone ringer volume is pretty straightforward.

Once you tap Settings and Sounds and Haptics, you can go to the Ringer and Alerts and will have everything you need to tweak the alarm volume. Alarms should ring loudly; hence, you may be interfering with this working principle by significantly reducing the sound.

However, sometimes, you use your phone for other tasks, say you are on a call, and don’t want to snooze or cancel the alarm. Instead, you can minimize the volume to prevent it from going off and interfering with the call. Besides turning down the ringer volume, there is no alternative way to tame the sound because even setting the iPhone to silent mode or Do Not Disturb cannot stop the ringing.

Sometimes you are in a busy or quiet place and don’t want the alarm to go off to avoid drawing in unnecessary attention even as you struggle to reduce the volume. The most convenient option is to allow your phone’s volume button to reduce the alarm volume. You can swiftly lower the sound to the lowest level within seconds.

Do iPhone Alarms Go Off on a Call?

Alarms play a significant role in ensuring that you keep time, especially when you get into deep sleep and want to avoid running late for work or school. The iPhone ringer is loud enough to wake you and is known to override most of the iPhone settings. If you are on a call at around the same time you expect the alarm to go off, you may wonder whether it will still ring.

If you are on a standard call on an iPhone, when the alarm goes off, you may only notice a vibration only or a quiet sound in the background, but the alert will sound as usual when on FaceTime. If you are making a regular call on your iPhone at the same time when your alarm should be going off, you may worry that the ring will interfere with the conversation. Luckily, standard calls can intercept the alert and manage its volume.

iPhone alarms will go off as you set them, and no ongoing call can interfere with them. However, they may not ring correctly if you make a conventional call and will vibrate momentarily and ring afterward.

However, if you are on FaceTime, the alarm will likely go off until you turn it off manually. iPhone alarms are pretty resilient, and there is no way to stop them from working unless you turn off your phone.

Your alarm will ring whether you silence the phone or put it on Do Not Disturb mode. Even if you reduce or mute the ringer volume, it will still go off, although it may not be loud enough to wake you. Therefore, the surest way to stop a set alarm from ringing is by switching off the handset. It can override FaceTime and regular calls, but such apps can affect the ringtone.

The alarm will go off as you planned, but in a low tone that cannot affect you or the receiver. However, you can still switch it off using the notification on the screen. On the contrary, FaceTime calls and alarms are a bit different. Nothing will change if you use the application to call when you expect the alert. It can be quite disturbing as it will keep ringing until you mute it or shut it down.

Putting the phone on Do Not Disturb mode or setting it silent will not stop the alarm from ringing while you are on FaceTime. To let your alarm sound without interfering with your calls, you can mute the ringer volume to ensure that it won’t be too loud to affect your conversation. Alarms are a crucial aspect of your routine, and you may need to leave them on even when you are using your phone for other tasks.

The iPhone alarm’s design makes it ring over other apps, and the only way to tame it is by adjusting the volume accordingly. Otherwise, you can turn off the alarm from the app when you don’t want it to ring when you are calling. Otherwise, you can adjust the sound through the Settings, where you select Sounds and Haptics, tap Ringer and Alerts and set the volume to your preferred level.

How Do You Change the iPhone Alarm Settings?

Setting your iPhone alarm takes only a few steps, but it only helps if it is at the right volume level, not too quiet that you can’t hear it, and not too loud that it scares you out of sleep. If you constantly have issues with the sound being too high or too low, this last segment has rounded up the most effective fixes.

Several iPhone alarm settings help you increase or reduce the volume from the Clock app and the phone’s settings. The first obvious way is to restart or update your iPhone, which helps eliminate some common bug issues.

Alternatively, you can adjust the volume from the Clock settings using the slider or the volume buttons. Your alarm tone or Bedtime ring feature may also be too loud, for which you can alter the notification tone or tweak the Sleep/Wake-up volume.

Before making any settings, it is important to note that the do not disturb mode and the phone’s silent/ ring feature do not interfere with the alarm volume. It will still go off regardless of the phone’s call settings. The following details may help if your alarm gets too loud or quiet.

  • Restart/ Update the iPhone

As with any other phone issue, the first troubleshooting method is to restart the device. It is usually a quick fix to minor glitches or bugs that may be affecting the alarm sound. Once you try this, it should go back to normal. If not, you can try other adjustments.

The problem may also be from a software bug, but you can solve this by updating your iPhone. From the Settings, click General and Software update to check whether there is a newly available one; you can install it if available, then reset the alarm.

  • Set the Alarm Volume

There is no way to adjust the ring volume unless you adjust the “Change with buttons” feature in the settings. You can enable it first before reducing or increasing it accordingly. It will be easier to configure it through the volume slider icon.

First, go to the Settings app, navigate to the sound, and find the slider under the ringer and alerts to control the volume. If this process seems tasking, you can alternatively enable buttons to adjust the tone, which is faster to set in the future.

  • Change the Tone

It is common for users to set tones that are typically loud or low regardless of the volume settings. If you want to change it, go to the Clock app and select Alarm. Click edit at the top left and choose which one you want to alter. Next, click sound, allowing you to pick another notification tone, then select the perfect one and click Save to effect the changes.

  • Change the Bedtime Feature

The Bedtime or the Sleep/ Wake up feature usually comes with a default alarm volume. Therefore, if you are using it, you can check that the Sound is OK, otherwise, tweak it to your preferred level. Go to the alarm through the Clock app and click Change beside the Sleep/ Wake up.

Afterward, you can scroll down to find a slider for the sound under the options that you can use to alter the volume, then click done after setting it. Remember that you can also change it from the Health app through Your Schedule by clicking edit and adjusting accordingly.

  • Check connected devices

If none of the above fixes are effective, you can check the connected Bluetooth devices. In most cases, if you have linked headphones to your iPhone, the default setting is that the alarm will ring through the in-built speakers and the connected device. However, some bug issues may interfere with this, but you can fix it by turning off Bluetooth and checking whether anything has changed.

Wrap Up

Although nobody likes loud alarms, they should still be audible enough for you to hear them even in your deep sleep. However, the sound must also be manageable not to startle you or affect the rest of your day. System bugs can affect your alarm settings, but you can restart your iPhone or update the software to eliminate errors.

The ring tone may also be too loud naturally, for which you can set a subtler alternative. The best and only way to manage the alarm sound is by making proper settings, and you can adjust it through the clock app and reduce the volume accordingly. Also, remember that the alarm can override other apps like FaceTime and ring even when you are on a call.

Bal Kang

Bal Kang is a technology expert based in the UK, with experience across a number of technology areas from phones, tablets, computers to gaming.

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