Apple released the first public beta of iOS 26 on July 24, which brought a new Liquid Glass design, call screening, and other features to developers’ and beta testers’ iPhones. It also updated the alarm feature in the clock app so you can change your snooze length, affording you a few more z’s before you get up and tackle the day.
Prior to this change, if you hit your iPhone alarm’s snooze feature, you would always get an extra 9 minutes of shut-eye. With the iOS 26 beta, you can customize your snooze length and get as little as 1 minute or up to 15 minutes of additional sleep.
Apple is still beta testing iOS 26, and the update might be buggy. Your device’s battery life may also be affected, so it’s best to keep those troubles off your primary device. If you want to try out the beta, I recommend downloading it on a secondary device.
It’s also possible that Apple could adjust the snooze length feature, and other update features, before the final version of iOS 26 is released this fall.
Whether you need to catch yourself before you doze off again or you require a few extra minutes of sleep, here’s how to change your alarm’s snooze length to better fit your needs.
How to change your alarm’s snooze length
1. Tap your Clock app.
2. Tap Alarms near the bottom of your screen.
3. Tap the plus (+) sign in the top right corner of your screen.
4. Tap Snooze Duration and pick anywhere between 1 and 15 minutes.
5. Finish setting your alarm and tap the check mark in the top right corner of your screen.
You can also change the snooze length of an existing alarm by long-pressing it, tapping Snooze Duration and choosing a new time.
You can choose 1 minute and have your alarm go off almost immediately after you hit the snooze button, or you can choose 15 minutes and try to finish that dream. Either way, don’t hit the snooze button too often, or your partner might angrily wake you up and kick you out of bed.
Should you give yourself a shorter or longer snooze time?
That’s hard to say. Some sources say that taking more than the traditional 9-minute snooze could make waking up more difficult, while others say up to 30 minutes of extra snooze time is fine.
«Once you get past the 10-minute mark, your body can start to fall back into a deep sleep, which will make waking up again difficult and more unpleasant,» Holly Schiff, a licensed clinical psychologist, told Reader’s Digest in 2021.
However, a 2023 study published in the Journal of Sleep Research found that an extra 30 minutes of sleep improved or had no effect on habitual snoozers’ cognitive performance immediately upon waking compared to being abruptly woken.
So there isn’t clear data on whether a shorter or longer snooze is better for you. If you feel worse with more snooze time, maybe try less, and vice versa. That is, if your pet doesn’t wake you up to go potty or for food when your alarm goes off the first time.
For more on iOS 26, here are my first impressions of the iOS version, how to enable call screening in the beta and all the other new features Apple said the update will bring to your device later this year.
