To make a reminder ring when your phone is on silent, it has to play as an alarm, not as a notification. Silent mode and Do Not Disturb mute notifications but leave alarms alone. On Android, use a reminder app that rings on the alarm channel. On iPhone, that needs iOS 26 or later and an app that uses Apple's alarm system, or the Clock app.
Here is why the difference exists, and what to set on each kind of phone.
Notifications and alarms are different sounds
Your phone keeps separate volumes for separate jobs. On Android you can see them by pressing a volume button and opening the full volume panel: ring, notification, media and alarm each have their own slider. Silent and vibrate mode turn down the ring and notification sounds. The alarm volume stays where it was, because people expect their wake-up alarm to work on a silent phone.
Most reminder apps, including the ones built into your phone, deliver a reminder as an ordinary notification. That means:
- on silent, it makes no sound;
- in Do Not Disturb, it is hidden or silent unless you made an exception;
- one swipe clears it, and it does not come back.
A reminder that rings on silent is one the app plays as an alarm.
On Android
What silent mode and Do Not Disturb let through
On stock Android, silent and vibrate mode do not touch the alarm volume. Do Not Disturb has its own list of exceptions, and alarms are allowed by default. You can check under Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb, in the part about alarms and other interruptions. If you switched alarms off there yourself, alarm-style reminders go quiet too.
Do Not Disturb can also let individual apps through. If your reminder app only sends notifications, adding it as an exception makes its notifications show and sound during Do Not Disturb. That helps with Do Not Disturb, but not with silent mode, which still mutes the notification volume.
Check the alarm volume
An alarm-style reminder plays at your alarm volume. If that slider sits at zero, the reminder rings silently. Press a volume button, open the full panel and check the alarm slider.
Make sure it can reach the lock screen
On Android 14 and later, apps need permission to show full-screen notifications, the screen that takes over the lock screen like an incoming call. Without it, an alarm-style reminder still plays its sound but only shows a notification. The setting is under Settings > Apps > Special app access > Full screen notifications on stock Android.
If the reminder rings late or not at all, that is a different problem: exact alarms and battery savers. Our post on why Android reminders are late and the Android battery guide cover it.
On iPhone
Silent mode and Focus
On an iPhone, the Ring/Silent switch or the Action button mutes notification sounds. A Focus, such as Sleep or Do Not Disturb, filters which notifications reach you at all. Alarms in Apple's Clock app ring through both.
Until iOS 26, other apps had two narrow ways around this. Time Sensitive notifications can break through a Focus if you allow them, but they still follow the silent switch. Critical alerts ring through everything, but Apple grants them only for things like health and public safety warnings.
iOS 26 and AlarmKit
iOS 26 added AlarmKit, which lets any app schedule a real alarm. Once you allow alarms for that app, its alarms ring through silent mode and Focus, the same way the Clock app's do. The first time an app wants to use it, iOS asks you. If you said no, you can turn it back on in the app's page in the Settings app.
So on iPhone the short version is:
- Update to iOS 26 or later.
- Use an app that schedules alarm-style reminders through AlarmKit.
- Allow alarms for that app when iOS asks.
On older iOS versions, use the Clock app for the few reminders that must ring on silent, or turn silent mode off. A Clock alarm has only a label and weekday repeats, so they work best for one or two fixed daily times, with the details kept in your reminder app. The iPhone reminders guide goes through notification settings, Focus and Scheduled Summary in more detail.
Make it hard to sleep through
A sound that starts at full volume can be startling, and one that stays quiet is easy to miss. It also helps to think about where the phone will be. A phone face down on a sofa cushion or in a bag in the hall is hard to hear at any volume. For a reminder that must not be missed, keep the phone in the room, or let a second device ring too. A few settings help as well:
- Rising volume. Starts quiet and gets louder, so you notice it without jumping.
- Spoken title. Hearing "take the bins out" tells you what it is without looking.
- Snooze presets. If the snooze choices match how you work, you snooze instead of dismissing and forgetting.
How Buzzley handles it
In Buzzley you choose a Notification style for each reminder: Simple, which is a normal notification, or Alarm, which rings full screen until you snooze it, dismiss it or mark it done (on Android, if nobody opens the ring screen, it goes quiet after 10 minutes and rings again 5 minutes later by default, for up to an hour).
On Android, Alarm-style reminders play on the alarm channel and get through Do Not Disturb, and they still ring after a restart, while the phone is still locked. The full-screen view appears when the phone is locked; when you are using the phone you get a notification to tap instead. If the ring screen is never opened, the sound stops after 10 minutes, the notification stays in the shade, and the alarm rings again 5 minutes later, for up to an hour. Overdue recall in Settings changes that gap or turns it off. Under Settings > Alarm you can pick the Alarm sound, turn on Rising volume and Read the reminder aloud, or use Shake to stop.
On iPhone with iOS 26 or later, Alarm-style reminders use AlarmKit and ring through silent mode and Focus once you allow alarms for Buzzley. On older iOS versions they arrive as a burst of notifications, which silent mode can mute.
The alarm reminders page shows the details, and the pricing page has the plans. The free trial lasts 7 days and needs no card.