Goodbye 9 Minutes — Hello Custom Snooze! in Alarm on iOS

In this podcast, Thomas Domville explains that, prior to iOS 26, the default alarm snooze was fixed at 9 minutes with no way to change it. In iOS 26, you can set a custom snooze duration directly in the Clock app when creating or editing an alarm. The episode walks through the exact steps with VoiceOver cues so screen-reader users can follow along comfortably.

---## Key Points & Takeaways

• Snooze is now adjustable in iOS 26. You’re no longer stuck with 9 minutes.
• You can edit an existing alarm or create a new one to set snooze duration.
• The snooze duration control appears once Snooze is toggled on.
• The host demonstrates VoiceOver navigation, including where to find Edit, Add, Repeat, Label, and the Snooze options.
• Maximum snooze duration cited is 15 minutes. (Choose what works for your routine.)

---## Step-by-Step: Set a Custom Snooze (iOS 26)

1. Open the Clock app.
2. Select the Alarms tab (bottom; to the right of World Clock).
3. Choose one:

• Edit an existing alarm: Find your alarm in the list and double-tap to open it.
• Create a new alarm: Add (top-right), then set your time.
  4. (Optional) Adjust Repeat and Label as desired.
  5. Ensure “Snooze” is On. You will then see the snooze duration control.
  6. Open the duration control and adjust to your desired minutes (up to 15 minutes).
  7. Finish by activating Done (top-right).
  8. (Optional) If you don’t want snooze at all, turn Snooze Off.

Tip: If you already have alarms set up, you don’t have to recreate them. Just open an existing alarm, locate Snooze, and adjust the duration there.

---## VoiceOver-Specific Notes (from the walkthrough)

• Open Clock: “Clock, … Double tap to open.”
• Navigate to Alarms: Tab bar shows “World Clock,” then “Alarms.” Select “Alarms.”
• Find Edit/Add: “Edit button” appears near the top; “Add button” is at the top-right.
• Time Pickers: The hour/minute pickers are adjustable; swipe up/down to change values.
• Snooze Toggle & Duration: After Snooze is On, a duration picker becomes available; swipe to your preferred minutes.
• Confirmation: Use Done to save changes.

---## Why It Matters

• Personalized wake-ups: Choose a snooze interval that fits your sleep pattern.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Thomas: Hello and welcome. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. We're going to talk about the alarm and the snooze. Yes, so in the previous iOS, and this is before iOS 26, is that the snooze was set as 9 minutes. You could not adjust it. It was annoying as heck because... I like to use my alarm, and sometimes I just want to just get that little extra sleep, but nine minutes can be a little short or a little too long, just depending on what you want your half snooze set for. Well, for whatever reason, Apple decided that was a brilliant idea, so they just set it to nine minutes and without the option of changing it at all. Now it comes along iOS 26. Now we are able to adjust that snooze duration, so... Long overdue, so I'm going to show you how to set this news up. So let's head over to the Clock app.

VoiceOver: Clock, 1.32 p.m. Double tap to open.

Thomas: One finger double tap will open up the Clock app.

VoiceOver: Clock, edit button.

Thomas: The first thing we need to do is go to the bottom left-hand corner and select the first tab there.

VoiceOver: Tab bar, world clock, tab, one of five.

Thomas: Where we have the world tab. Now go to the right and swipe once.

VoiceOver: Selected. Alarms. Tab. Two of five.

Thomas: Now we're at the alarm tab. Go ahead and do one finger double tap on that. Select that. Let's go to the top here. I'm going to do a four finger tap towards the top half of my phone here.

VoiceOver: Edit button.

Thomas: Where you will find the edit button. Now if you have an existing alarm and you want to change the snooze duration, just go to the alarm that you have created, double tap that, and then swipe to the right until you get to the snooze area. It's going to be very similar to what we're going to be doing here, with the exception I'm going to create a new alarm so you can see what it looks like from scratch. Top right.

VoiceOver: Add button.

Thomas: Is your add button. One finger double tap on add.

VoiceOver: Cancel button.

Thomas: We have the cancel at the top left, done at the top right.

VoiceOver: Add alarm. Heading. Done. Button. One o'clock. Picker item. Adjustable. One of twelve. Swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value.

Thomas: I am going to select to 7 a.m. for my wake-up call, so let's go ahead and swipe up until we get to 7.

VoiceOver: 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock, 7 of 12.

Thomas: Swipe to the right to get to the minutes.

VoiceOver: 33 minutes. Picker item, adjustable, 34 of 60. Swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value.

Thomas: Now I'm going to either swipe up or down until I get to zero for a straight up seven o'clock.

VoiceOver: All right, go to the right. I'm going to swipe down to the a.m. AM 1 of 2.

Thomas: Excellent. Now go to the right.

VoiceOver: Repeat. Never.

Thomas: Button. I'll leave that up to you. If this is a wake-up call that you want to set your alarm for every day, go ahead and double-tap that, and you can select what days to be repeated for.

VoiceOver: Label. Alarm. Text field. Double-tap to edit.

Thomas: This is a great time to set your alarm name. So if it's a wake-up call, so I can just put wake-up call. Or if you have other alarm in mind, go ahead and give us a label. But what we're looking for is the snooze. So let's go to the right.

VoiceOver: Sound. Radial. Button. Snooze. Switch button. On. Double tap to toggle setting.

Thomas: There's the old snooze. Now go to the right here. And alas, we have a duration that we can adjust other than nine minutes. One finger to tap on this. How sweet is that?

VoiceOver: So now if you want five minutes there, just swipe down. 8 minutes, 7 minutes, 6 minutes, 5 minutes, 5 of 15.

Thomas: For 5 minutes, that's something that I might want to do, but I'm going to set mine for 10 minutes. I'll swipe back up to 10.

VoiceOver: 6 minutes, 7 minutes, 8 minutes, 9 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 of 15.

Thomas: And as you heard there, it's up to 15 minutes, so the maximum amount is 15 minutes. And if you're all happy with that and you're done, go to top right.

VoiceOver: Done. Button.

Thomas: Double-tap. Done. And voila. So now you have an alarm set up for 10-minute snooze. If you don't want to snooze, I'll just turn that option off. And as I mentioned before, with existing alarm, just go to the particular alarm that you created before, double-tap that, and go down to snooze and do exactly what I just did. Double-tap on the 9-minute button and adjust the duration for you. So at last, hallelujah, snooze. Down comes with us being able to change the duration other than nine minutes, which is long overdue. So I'm excited for this. And I wanted to let you know that this news has come with new duration. That's going to do for me. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. Until next time.