X

Hate Your iPhone's Alarm Slider? Here's How You Can Get Rid of It

Apple introduced the Alarm slider when it released iOS 26.1 in November, but you can get rid of it in four steps.

Headshot of Zachary McAuliffe
Headshot of Zachary McAuliffe
Zachary McAuliffe Staff writer
Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him reading and drinking coffee or watching a TV series with his wife and their dog.
Expertise Web hosting | Operating systems | Applications | Software Credentials
  • Apple software beta tester, "Helps make our computers and phones work!" - Zach's grandparents
Zachary McAuliffe
2 min read
iPhone 17E in soft pink
Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET

Alarms are annoying, even to people who set them. And if you can't quickly turn off your alarm, you run the risk of waking up others near you. When Apple released iOS 26.1 in November, the company made it a little more difficult to turn off your iPhone's alarm with a new slider.

Tech Tips

The change seemed to be designed to prevent you from accidentally turning off your alarm too quickly with a single tap when reaching for your phone. But the slider can cause you to stumble out of bed trying to figure out why your alarm won't turn off despite pressing the Stop button like you have a thousand times in the past, all while your baby is now awake and crying, and the dog is barking which wakes up your wife, who is now asking what is happening.

Hypothetically, that is.

Anyway, if you loathe the Alarm slider like me, you can remove it and bring the Stop button back to your device in a few easy steps.

Bring your iPhone's alarm button back

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Touch.
4. Enable the toggle for Prefer Single-Touch Actions near the bottom of the menu.

The Touch menu with Prefer Single-Touch Actions outlined in red.
Apple/CNET

Once enabled, you can tap the button on your screen, rather than using the slider, to stop the alarm. Enabling this toggle doesn't appear to affect any other iPhone functions, but that could change in the future.

If you want to bring the alarm slider back after disabling it, follow the steps above and disable the Prefer Single-Touch Actions toggle.

For more iOS news, check out what to know about iOS 26.3.1 and iOS 26.3. You can also take a look at our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

Watch this: iOS 26.1 Update Fixes Alarm, Lets You Change Liquid Glass