How to turn your old iPhone into an alarm clock

Getting a new phone might leave you wondering what to do with your old one. Trading it in, particularly for credit towards your new handset, is ideal and could make a future refurbished shopper happy. But if the trade-in value isn’t worthwhile to you and you’ve been wondering what else your retired pocket computer can do, we have a few ideas. One suggestion is to turn it into a dedicated alarm clock. Yes, you can absolutely use your new phone for that purpose — you probably already do. But there are clear advantages to using your decommissioned device instead. Here’s how to upcycle your old iPhone into an alarm clock.

What’s the point?

Stuffing a retired gadget in a drawer does nothing — except make you half-heartedly contemplate doing something with it each time you open said drawer. Recycling is a valid option, but even if your old handset isn’t as speedy as your new one, it’s almost assuredly more powerful than any sleep machine or smart alarm clock on the market. And with the setup tips detailed here, it can actually perform more advanced functions, too.

Plus, using your current phone when you’re trying to sleep is perilous. I’ve never picked up my phone without getting distracted. Finally, with on-again, off-again tariffs making electronic gadgets harder to come by for a good price, rethinking what an existing device can do is intelligent alchemy.

First, delete everything

OK, not everything. But the idea is to make your phone as unexciting as possible — no Instagram, no Monument Valley, no Photos memories from last year’s road trip. Your iPhone won’t let you delete certain apps, such as Phone, Messages, the App Store and others — but you can hide them from your home screen so they’ll only pop up if you search for them.

You’ll still need a few apps to create your alarm clock, so don’t delete or hide the following:

Set a personalized alarm tone

If you’d rather wake up to something more pleasant than the Clock app’s chirps and bleeps, pick a personalized sound instead.

1. Set your sleep schedule in Health. Apple requires you to set your Sleep Schedule in the Health app before you can set an alarm in the Clock app.

2. Download a song. Theoretically, you can use any song you have downloaded to your phone as a sound for your alarm. But I couldn’t get it to work with any song that supported Dolby Atmos or Lossless audio (even if I turned those options off in Settings > Music > Audio).

But standard quality songs worked great. If, like me, you’re not a heavy sleeper, you might like something like singing bowls or a meditative flute. If you need the thunder of the gods to wake you, perhaps go for something more rousing.

3. Set your alarm. Open the Clock app and select the Alarms tab. Set your alarm as usual. Then tap Sound > Pick a song > Downloaded > and select the (non Lossless!) song you desire. Hit Save.

4. Turn off vibrate. If you don’t want your phone to vibrate when it plays your alarm, turn the Haptics option to Never Play in Settings > Sounds & Haptics.

Make some (white) noise

My favorite thing about my sleep machine is the ambient music it plays as I drift off into slumber. Unsurprisingly, your old iPhone is capable of playing lulling tunes as well. And if white noise helps you stay in dreamland, you can program your phone to play those sounds, too. A combination of Shortcuts and Automations will make your sleep routine play automatically so you don’t have to touch your screen at all.

1. Build a sleepytime playlist. Open Apple Music and make a playlist. (Unfortunately, Shortcuts doesn’t work with Spotify.) I populated Amy’s Sleepytime Mix with songs from Apple’s Ambient Chill and Pure Ambient playlists. I made the set about 30 minutes long because that’s a little longer than it takes me to drift off.

2. Turn off Autoplay. It’s pretty jarring when you’re drifting off and your dreamy playlist morphs into some algorithmically selected oontz oontz banger. To turn Autoplay off:

• Play any track in Apple Music.

• Tap the name of the song to enlarge the album cover and track controls.

• Tap the three lines at the bottom right. You’ll now see upcoming tracks and three buttons at the top of the list: crossed arrows (shuffle), looped arrows (repeat) and an infinity symbol (Autoplay).

• Toggle Autoplay off so it’s greyed out.

Note: Turning Autoplay off turns it off across ALL your Apple devices. If you like it when Apple keeps the tunes flowing after a playlist ends, you’ll have to complete a side quest, which is detailed at the end of this post.

3. Pick your white noise sound. An accessibility feature gives you the option of eight different white noise sounds, including Rain, Ocean, Fire and Night (with more functions coming soon).

• Open the Settings app

• Tap Accessibility

• Tap Audio & Visual

• Tap Background Sounds

• Toggle Background Sounds on

• Tap Sound then pick your favorite

• Press back and toggle Background Sounds back off

• Toggle on Use When Media Is Playing

• Toggle off Stop Sounds When Locked

3. Create a Shortcut. This will make your phone play your playlist with white noise beneath it (which softens song transitions) and when the playlist ends, the white noise continues.

• Open Shortcuts and tap All Shortcuts, then tap + in the upper right

• Search for the term “volume,” tap Set Volume and choose a percentage, such as 25-percent or your desired level

• Search for “background,” tap Set Background Sounds. The shortcut should read: [Turn] [Background Sounds] [On]

• Search for “play” and tap Play Music

• Tap Music > Library > Playlist > [Your sleepy time mix]. Then tap the tiny ⊕ in the upper right

• Tap the arrow next to the Shortcut title at the very top to rename your shortcut, perhaps something like Sleep Routine or Night Night.

• Tap Done.

4. Trigger your Shortcut with an Automation. To run your Shortcut, you can just ask Siri by saying “Hey Siri, Night Night” (or “Hey Siri, Sleep Routine” or whatever you named the above shortcut). But if you want your routine to start at the same time each night, create an automation.

• In the Shortcut app, tap the Automation tab at the bottom

• Tap + to create a new Automation

• Tap Time of Day and enter your preferred start time and days

• Make sure there’s a checkmark near Run Immediately (and not Run After Confirmation) and keep Notify When Run toggled off

• Tap Next

• If you don’t see the name of the Shortcut you created at the top, search for its name and tap on it

5. Turn off Background Sounds. Whether you want your white noise to play all the way up to your alarm or just for an hour or two, it’s wise to create an automation to turn it off so you don’t have to do it manually.

• Create a new Shortcut

• Search for “background”

• Tap Set Background Sound

• Tap [On] to [Off] so the Shortcut reads [Turn] [Background Sounds] [Off]

• Rename the Shortcut: Background Sounds Off

• Hit done

• Create a new Automation in the Automation tab

• Tap Time of Day

• Set it for your alarm time or a couple hours after you’re usually asleep

• Tap Run Immediately and make sure Notify When Run is toggled off

• Hit done and choose the shortcut you just made (Background Sounds Off)

Stand it up

Phones running iOS 17 or later have StandBy mode, which displays your choice of stylized clock faces when the handset is charging and oriented horizontally. To enable StandBy:

If you put your phone in a stand, it’ll look a lot like an alarm clock (and be easier to see from afar). Whether you use a MagSafe wireless stand or a basic stand-and-cord combo, your new alarm clock (aka old phone) will likely be plugged in all the time. So you may want to change your battery settings to keep it from reaching 100 percent. (Being fully charged or fully empty is what strains batteries the most). To do that:

Side quest: Make your sleep playlist stop without turning off Autoplay

Some people like it when the algorithm tries to keep the party going with related songs after a playlist ends. But, playing random music all night probably isn’t great for sleep. The good news is, you can set a timer to have your sleep tunes play for a specified period, so it ends on its own without you having to disable Autoplay across all your devices.

• Note the length of your playlist

• Open the Clock app and tap the Timers tab

• Tap When Timer Ends and scroll down to and tap Stop Playing

• Tap Set

• Open Shortcuts and edit your night time routine by tapping the three dots in the Shortcut card (the one with your playlist and Background sounds)

• Search for “timer”

• Tap Start Timer

• Enter the length of your playlist in the Duration field

• Tap Done

Because the Background Sounds are a setting and not technically media that’s playing, your white noise selection will still play until the automation that ends it runs.