Having an issue where your iPhone alarm seems to go off at random? It’s a rather easy scenario to picture: you’re laying in bed sleeping, needing all the rest you can because you get up for work early. Deep in slumber, you hear the familiar sound of the iPhone alarm blaring, causing you to awake. It’s a situation that feels all too familiar, and there’s fortunately something you can do about it. Keep reading to find out more.
I’m going to show you what you can do about an iPhone alarm that is seemingly going off at random. I cover a multitude of solutions for this problem, and I’ve also taken the time to rank them from easiest to hardest. I also go into several reasons why a user may experience a ghost alarm, including a couple of reasons why it may be happening in the first place. An unwanted alarm is a pesky alarm, so let’s explore how to get rid of them.
Why Did My iPhone Alarm Randomly Go Off?
Your iPhone alarm may be randomly going off for a number of reasons. While the sound of an iPhone alarm is sure to get anyone moving, you certainly don’t want to hear it if you didn’t set it. There can be a couple of different reasons why your alarm may be going off seemingly at random. For example, you may be running a beta version of iOS and are experiencing a bug, you may have a setting wrong within the iPhone Clock app, or you may have accidentally enabled a certain feature. I discuss all this and more below.
How Do I Get Rid of the Ghost Alarm?
If you need to get rid of a ghost alarm on your iPhone, there’s a number of things you can do. Let’s take a look at some solutions.
Covering the Basics
If you’re experiencing issues with your iPhone alarm randomly going off, there’s a couple of simple things you can try first. While these are not guaranteed to solve your problem, they might. However, it may be a good idea to perform many of these tasks anyway.
First, make sure your iPhone is up to date. Try your best to stay current with the latest operating system for any device. You can check your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Software Update. If one is available, update your device.
It’s also a good idea to force restart your iPhone. This may eliminate any ghost alarms occurring on your device. To force restart your iPhone if you have Face ID (no Home button), press and immediately release the volume up button, then press and immediately release the volume down button. Lastly, press and hold the power button until you see the Apple logo.
For the iPhone 7, you will press and hold the volume down along with the Sleep/Wake button. Wait for the Apple logo to appear. For the iPhone 6s or iPhone SE, you will press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button. Hold until the Apple logo appears. A nice force restart may just do the trick.
Users should also remove any third-party alarm apps until they figure out their problem. You can remove an app by pressing and holding on the app, then selecting Remove App > Delete App > Delete from the pop-up window.
Remove and Reset iPhone Alarms
One of the first things you should check is your Alarms in the Clock app. There may be an Alarm set that you forgot about, or you may have accidentally set multiple alarms. Personally, I would recommend deleting them all and starting over from scratch, but once you know what to do, you can determine for yourself which ones you want to delete.
- Open the Clock app on your iPhone and choose Alarm from the bottom.
- To delete an Alarm, swipe left on it and tap Delete.
- You can set new Alarms with the + button in the top-right corner. You can also hit the Edit button at the top to remove Alarms.
Disable Bedtime Feature
Some users may forget about this feature, but the Health app does include Sleep options, which also features a setting that allows users to have their device remind them when it’s time to go to bed and when it’s time to wake up. This Sleep setting will play an alarm for each. This may be a setting users should check if they’re experiencing ghost alarms.
Time needed: 1 minute
To check if you have Sleep notifications turned on:
- Open the Health app.
- Go to Browse and then select Sleep.
- Select Full Schedule & Options.
- Toggle the Sleep Schedule button to off.
Turn Off Random iPhone Alarms: Reset All iPhone Settings
As a last resort, you can always reset all of the settings on your iPhone. While this isn’t entirely a “going nuclear” option, it is going to erase all of the settings across all of your stock iPhone apps.
Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings to bring your iPhone settings to default.
How Do I Stop Ghost Alarms?
If you’re tired of alarms constantly harassing you throughout your life: whether you’re trying to sleep and a random alarm goes off, or you find they’re going off when you’re doing something important, know that there’s steps you can take to prevent this. For those that need to stop a random or ghost alarm from going off when they don’t want it to, try some of the solutions above to see if they work for you.
If you need further help with your iPhone alarm, we’ve got you covered. For example, we can show you how to disable the snooze option for an alarm, which can be particularly helpful for some. We can also show you how to shut off an alarm on other people’s phones, which may be extremely useful for those tired of dealing with alarms.
F.A.Q.
There’s a variety of reasons your alarm may go off in the middle of the night. For example, you may have an alarm set for A.M. when you meant to set it to P.M. Additionally, there can be other alarms you have forgotten about. A third-party alarm app may also cause this issue. Fortunately, there are solutions available for this problem.
Your alarm is likely going off at night due to an incorrect setting. The most likely reason may be simply that an alarm in the Clock app is set improperly. That, or you may have your Sleep settings in the Health app set incorrectly. If you’re using a third-party app, this may also be causing problems.
A ghost alarm is an alarm that you didn’t set. Or, an alarm you forgot that you set. While you’re not likely to find the term in a common dictionary, people often use the phrase to signify an alarm that is mysteriously going off on their iPhone or other device. As mentioned, there are ways to potentially disable ghost alarms, wherever they may be hiding.