How to make your Android alarm sound at full volume even when your calls are muted

After a stressful day at work, it can be nice to relax and just press the volume down button until your Android phone is completely silent. No calls, no meetings, no distractions, just hit the grass. While a silent phone can be comforting, on some Android devices, muting calls can also unintentionally silence your incoming alarms, which is a difficult way to discover that you’ve overslept and missed a meeting.

Fortunately, on most Android devices, there are several ways to keep your calls on mute while your morning alarms still go off at full volume. But Android is a pretty broad ecosystem of different devices from different manufacturers, so there’s no one way to do this. On some devices, you can do everything with the volume slider; you can mute calls and manage your alarm volume directly here. On others, you’ll probably have to dig through your sound settings to find the right slider.

First, check your extended volume menu. Press one of your volume buttons to display your volume slider, then tap the three-dot icon. In the expanded menu, you will see sliders for different sounds like media, ringtone, and notifications. If you see one for alarms, adjust it to your preferred level.

If this doesn’t work for you, then you will need to go to your settings app. Go to Settings > Sound & vibration > Volume. In this menu, you will see separate sliders for media, ringtone, notifications and alarm. Drag the alarm slider to adjust its volume. Note that depending on your exact Android device, the steps and menu may not be exactly the same.

If you’re using a Samsung phone and don’t feel like going into your settings app, you can bring up the alarm volume slider in the extended volume menu. Simply go to your alarm app, set a short timer, and once it goes off, use your volume buttons and the three-dot icon to open the volume menu. You will now notice that your alarm slider is in the menu and you can adjust its volume.

The last place to look is your Do Not Disturb settings. Once again, open Settings and access or search your Do not disturb settings. Once there, make sure alarms are enabled during Do Not Disturb.

A few other things can keep your alarms silent even after trying all of the fixes above. And one of the most common culprits that is easily overlooked is Bluetooth audio routing. Simply put, check if your phone is connected to a Bluetooth audio device, like your headphones or car speakers, and is routing your alarm sound through there rather than through your phone.

Your phone’s battery optimization settings are another suspect that could be causing your alarm to be silent, especially if you’re using a third-party alarm app. Go through your settings and check if your alarm or clock app has been put to sleep or restricted to background activities. If you discover this is the case, exclude the app and grant it optimized or unlimited background access for best results.

Let’s talk about third-party alarm apps. If you use one, make sure it is set as your default alarm app. Otherwise, your Android phone will continue to use the native clock app. This way, any alarms you set will not go off.