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Make a Vibrate-only iPhone Alarm

Posted on Friday 6 February 2009

For such an amazing device, the iPhone sure does lack some features. Forwarding text messages, copy and paste, and background applications come to mind. But there’s been one thing that’s been bothering me lately: Vibrating alarms.

Select the Vibrate ringtone in the iPhone alarm settings page.The iPhone’s clock application is great, allowing you to set timers, use a stopwatch, and have unlimited alarms. But even if you put the iPhone on silent mode, when an alarm goes off it still plays the ringtone you selected at full blast. This is very inconsiderate if you’re trying to set an alarm at night without waking other people up!

Luckily, there is an easy solution:

• Download the Vibrate ringtone from the free ringtones section of my home page. (Check out my other free ringtones and music too!)

• Drag Vibrate.m4r file to iTunes.

• Connect your iPhone, and under iPhone>Ringtones check “Sync ringtones > All ringtones”.

• Click sync.

Now, when you set an alarm, choose Vibrate as your alarm.

Voilà!


42 Comments for 'Make a Vibrate-only iPhone Alarm'

  1.  
    Kate
    April 25, 2009 | 8:28 am
     

    just got my iphone today and was so dissapointed with the lack of vibrating alarm!
    you saved my mornings! thanks!

  2.  
    Jen
    August 10, 2009 | 7:21 pm
     

    I completely agree with not having a vibrate ringer! Thanks! This is awesome!

  3.  
    Jason
    August 13, 2009 | 1:55 pm
     

    Thank you!

  4.  
    Beeci
    September 13, 2009 | 3:52 pm
     

    Awesome! Thanks!

  5.  
    Joe
    September 19, 2009 | 6:59 pm
     

    Worked pretty well! Thanks!

  6.  
    SK
    September 25, 2009 | 5:27 am
     

    You saved my iphone and morning!

    apple may be thankful to you.

    Works perfectly what I wanted. Thanks!!!!!

  7.  
    Gabrielle
    September 29, 2009 | 12:02 am
     

    I’m sure there are many of your compositions that make you prouder, but I will be listening to this one every single day. Thank you so much, what a great service to all iPhone users!

  8.  
    September 29, 2009 | 12:43 am
     

    Ha, I stole the compositional idea from John Cage!

  9.  
    Jordan
    November 5, 2009 | 11:42 pm
     

    Thank you so much for this. Add me to the list of people who were disappointed by the lack of a vibrate-only ringtone. I’ll be getting a whole lot of use out of this one.

  10.  
    Celeste
    November 20, 2009 | 10:04 pm
     

    Thank you sooo much!! It works GREAT!! I have been trying to figure out a way to get the iphone to vibrate for an alarm! I go to the apple store and say, but I don’t want to wake up eveyrone around me just cause I have to wake up! They told me to go on google! and I found this! thank you !!!

  11.  
    David
    December 6, 2009 | 11:35 pm
     

    Thanks for saving me the hassle!

  12.  
    jenn
    January 24, 2010 | 6:51 pm
     

    thank-you sooo much! i too was very disappointed to not have this feature! whoohoo!

  13.  
    Ellis McLaughlin
    February 18, 2010 | 6:10 pm
     

    Thank you thank you thank you!

  14.  
    emz
    July 27, 2010 | 5:06 pm
     

    I tried to set my alarm to vibrate and it didnt work, hate being woken up with noise so was so happy when i just did this and it worked! No horrible wake ups thanks!

  15.  
    Christina
    September 4, 2010 | 11:31 pm
     

    That’s AWESOME! I just bought an iPhone 4 and the alarm is very important to me while I am at work. I keep my phone ini silent mode but I found out the stupid alarm didn’t offer VIBRATE mode!!!! That’s not cool at all! I finally found your site today and download the Vibrate.m4r. IT WORKS! I am not sure how it works because the ringtone itself is music. (I clicked and played) Anyway, I appreciate you for creating this riingtone and share to all of us. You made my day!! Thank you!

  16.  
    grant
    October 1, 2010 | 4:58 am
     

    Thankyou. Well done

  17.  
    Cheri
    November 2, 2010 | 3:48 am
     

    THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You are seriously my 5:05 am hero!!!!!

  18.  
    joohwan hong
    November 9, 2010 | 12:36 pm
     

    you are my savior!!! thx a lot of for this great achievment!!!!

  19.  
    joohwan hong
    November 9, 2010 | 1:03 pm
     

    And I’m also suprised that you’ve compromised Yi soon shin theme! I’m proud of him as one of koreans. anyway thank you again!

  20.  
    Yanik Silver
    March 8, 2011 | 1:56 pm
     

    Jordan –
    I just switched to an iPhone and couldn’t believe it wouldn’t vibrate for an alarm. So silly. Thanks for creating a quick, easy-to-use fix. I know a lot of others appreciate it too.

  21.  
    Angela
    April 22, 2011 | 7:31 am
     

    This is fantastic. Solved my problem!

  22.  
    May 27, 2011 | 3:38 pm
     

    Thank you SOOOO much! I need to set two daily alarms throughout my day and I can not have my actual alarm going off and blaring while I’m at work! You’re amazing!

  23.  
    Colleen
    June 22, 2011 | 5:09 pm
     

    Thanks sooo much! I run a bible study and have to have an alarm to alert me to the next portion of the meeting. The regular alarms are just too jarring!
    Thanks sooo much!

  24.  
    Ken
    July 21, 2011 | 7:03 am
     

    Nice job. Now I can ride on the quiet car to Philadelphia, sleep, and not bother anyone before it’s time to wake up. Never will miss my stop again!

  25.  
    Ally
    July 25, 2011 | 1:53 am
     

    Thanks heaps

  26.  
    Carol Lynn
    July 31, 2011 | 10:57 am
     

    Jordan-

    Bless you for this Vibrate-only app!!!

    Carol Lynn

  27.  
    Sara
    October 19, 2011 | 6:54 pm
     

    The tone is not working in the new OS 5. Any work around?

  28.  
    glp
    October 24, 2011 | 2:28 pm
     

    Genius! Thank you!!

  29.  
    November 3, 2011 | 2:43 am
     

    Hi Sara, it works fine for me in iOS 5.

  30.  
    Craig
    November 7, 2011 | 2:55 am
     

    Hello, This used to work for me but no longer in ios5. Can anybody help please??????

  31.  
    mike
    November 8, 2011 | 1:29 am
     

    Just tried in iOS 5 and it works well, thanks!

  32.  
    lisa
    November 14, 2011 | 1:34 am
     

    it’s not working for me in OS5 either. Now I can’t seem to find the ringtone on my actual iPhone. Any thoughts?

  33.  
    November 14, 2011 | 4:59 pm
     

    Hi Lisa,
    When I upgraded to iOS 5 and enabled wifi syncing, I had to go back into iTunes and click on my iPhone > Ringtones and recheck “sync ringtones”. Maybe try that?

  34.  
    lisa
    November 17, 2011 | 12:26 am
     

    I did sync ringtones and in my iTunes the vibrate ringtone appears. But when I disconnect the phone from my computer, the vibrate ringtone doesn’t appear in the options to select for alarm ringtone. Any thoughts?

    Thanks so much for your help on this! Up til now, your ringtone has been a life saver!

  35.  
    Sev
    November 19, 2011 | 2:50 am
     

    iPhone 4S + iOS 5. Thanks! It works perfectly.

    FYI people: when previewing the sounds for your alarms, vibrat.m4r WILL NOT vibrate. You have to set a test alarm to actually test it out. I thought it didn’t work, but it does 🙂

  36.  
    Mike
    December 1, 2011 | 8:54 pm
     

    I just got an iPhone 4S and I did what you said and it is not working with my phone for some reason. Please, help!

  37.  
    lisa
    December 4, 2011 | 4:34 am
     

    just wanted to check in again. any chance you’ve figured out this issue?

    thank you!

  38.  
    Carly
    December 12, 2011 | 11:25 pm
     

    SAVED MY MORNINGS

  39.  
    Sam
    December 13, 2011 | 3:10 am
     

    @lisa
    In iTunes: Drag it from your library to your iPhone section then sync

  40.  
    Richard
    December 27, 2011 | 4:59 pm
     

    You just saved me $30. I was about to buy a vibrating pillow alarm clock, but I won’t need to now. Thank you!

  41.  
    Adrian
    January 1, 2012 | 11:24 am
     

    Thank you. This is great, yet slient.

  42.  
    Sunny
    February 27, 2012 | 4:27 pm
     

    I used your vibrate ringtone and works great, except, I would also like the alarm to beep at the same time. Do you have an iPhone ringtone with a 30 second beeping like a regular side-table alarm? This solves a simple problem, where your alarm rings/vibrates for 30 secs and then snoozes automatically, if not dismissed. And, if you turn off the sound with the hardware button, then it just vibrates for the 30 secs. This would work exactly as a Palm Treo does and super convenient when you need to be notified/woken up silently. Have not been able to find this anywhere on the web. Thanks

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