How to set up a Music sleep timer on your iPhone [Tutorial]

If you’ve spent many a head-scratching night wondering exactly where the sleep timer function on your iPhone is, only to give up and worry about the state of your battery life in the morning, then fret no more – it’s a lot simpler to set up than you might think. Whereas on the older generations of the iPod the sleep timer function was very clearly found within the Clock menu, there has been much confusion over whether iOS had the ability at all to stop playing media on your device after a set time. Luckily for you guys, we stumbled across it and have outlined it in the six simple steps in this guide.

Now, unfortunately it is not possible to use this function on every media player-style app you have downloaded from the App Store. Some do have built- in functions with which you can set a sleep timer, while others are compatible with the sleep timer function found in the iOS software. However, after a little bit of research on the internet, we have found that there are guidelines in the Apple Developer guide showing budding app builders how to implement the feature, so it should be a common feature in the future.

Step 1: Clock

On the home screen, open the Utilities folder and select Clock – this is where you’d usually find your Alarm, Stopwatch, World Clock and Timer functions.

Step 2: Timer

At the bottom are all the aforementioned functions. Select Timer on the far right to be shown a screen with a large timing bezel.

Step 3: Set time

Now set the desired time you want your music to play for before going silent. We found between half an hour and an hour worked for us.

Step 4: When Timer Ends

Now press the When Timer Ends button. You’ll be shown a screen with all the alarm and ringtone options. Select Stop Playing at the bottom.

Step 5: Start

This has set your iPhone to cease playing music after the allotted time you previously specified, so everything will go silent once the timer runs out.

Step 6: Music

If you were already listening to something in Music, carry on and it’ll stop as the Timer runs out. If not, go to your Library and pick something to listen to.

Click on the image below to zoom in and view the annotations.