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Do alarms work on silent and Do Not Disturb?

Alarms are meant to sound through silent mode and Do Not Disturb on both iPhone and Android. Here is when that fails, and how to be sure yours will ring.
iPhone & AndroidLast updated

The short answer

Yes. On both iPhone and Android, alarms set in the system clock are designed to sound through silent mode and Do Not Disturb. Alarms that stay silent are usually caused by ringer volume at zero, Bluetooth audio routing, or a custom Focus mode rather than by silent mode itself.

iPhone

The silent switch and Do Not Disturb do not silence Clock app alarms. If yours is silent, the cause is elsewhere.

  • Ringer volume is separate from media volume, and the side buttons usually adjust media. Check Settings → Sounds & Haptics.
  • A connected Bluetooth device can capture the audio. Disconnect and retest.
  • A custom Focus mode — not standard Do Not Disturb — can behave differently. Test with all Focus modes off.

Android

Android splits volume into separate streams, and the alarm stream is its own. Turning the ringer to silent does not touch it.

  1. 1Press a volume key, tap the settings or three-dot icon, and check the Alarm slider specifically.
  2. 2Open Settings → Sound → Do Not Disturb → Exceptions and confirm that Alarms are allowed.
  3. 3Check that a third-party alarm app is using the alarm audio stream rather than the notification stream. Apps that post a notification instead of a real alarm inherit notification rules.

The reliable test

Set an alarm for two minutes from now, switch on silent and Do Not Disturb, lock the phone and put it face down. If it rings, silent mode is not your problem. This takes two minutes and settles the question permanently.

Roosta uses the system alarm path on both platforms, which is what makes it audible through silent mode and Do Not Disturb, and why it does not depend on notification permissions to wake you.

Frequently asked

Will my alarm go off if my phone is on silent?

Yes. Alarms use a separate audio stream from the ringer on both iPhone and Android, so silent mode does not suppress them. A silent alarm usually means the alarm volume itself is down or audio is routed to a Bluetooth device.

Does Do Not Disturb stop alarms?

No. Do Not Disturb is designed to allow alarms through on both platforms. Custom Focus modes on iPhone and custom DND exception rules on Android can change this, so check those if an alarm is suppressed.

An alarm that cannot quietly fail.

Roosta registers alarms with the operating system rather than scheduling them itself, and nothing on the alarm path needs a network. Most of the failures on this page cannot happen to it.

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