Do timers go off on Do Not Disturb? Yes — unless one setting is on

Yes. The iPhone Clock timer goes off with Do Not Disturb on, in any other Focus including Sleep, and with Silent mode on. Timers belong to the same system as alarms — on iOS 27 Apple even groups them under one "Alarms and Timers" volume — and alarms are documented to ring through all of these.

So if your timer stayed quiet, Do Not Disturb almost certainly isn't why. One setting in the timer itself is the usual culprit.

Quick answer: Do Not Disturb, Focus and Silent mode don't stop the Clock timer. What does: the timer's sound set to Stop Playing, a low Alarms and Timers volume, the phone being switched off, or a third-party timer app that isn't allowed through your Focus.

A note on sources: Apple's support pages state this directly for alarms, not for timers. The timer behaves the same way in practice and shares the alarm volume setting, but if a timer really matters — medication, cooking, a parking meter — do the 30-second test at the end of this page once.

The setting that silences a timer: Stop Playing

Open Clock → Timers and tap When Timer Ends. At the very bottom of the sound list is Stop Playing. It isn't a sound — it's a sleep timer. When the countdown finishes, it stops whatever audio or video is playing and makes no noise at all.

People set it once to fall asleep to a podcast and forget. Every timer after that ends in silence, on Do Not Disturb or not. Pick a real sound and it's fixed.

Do timers go off on silent?

Yes, in practice. Silent mode — the side switch, or the Action button on newer iPhones — mutes calls and notifications, not the Clock timer. When a timer ends you also get an alert on screen whatever app you're in, with Repeat and Stop right on the Lock Screen.

Timer volume

• iOS 27: by default, alarms and timers match your ringtone volume. In Settings → Sounds & Haptics, under Alarms and Timers, turn off Match Ringtone Volume to give alarms and timers their own slider. This is the fix if a quiet ringer has been making your timers quiet too.
• iOS 26 and earlier: timer volume follows the Ringtone and Alerts slider in Sounds & Haptics — not the media volume the side buttons change while a video plays.

Will a timer go off through AirPods?

This is where alarms and timers are documented differently. Apple says alarms play through the iPhone speaker and connected headphones. Apple doesn't say the same about timers, and reports differ on whether the timer sound goes to the speaker, the AirPods, or both.

If you need to hear it out loud, take the AirPods out or disconnect them before the timer ends, and test your own setup once. The alarm side of this is covered in does iPhone alarm play through AirPods.

Other cases

• Phone switched off: no timer. Nothing on an iPhone rings while it's powered off — see do alarms go off when your phone is off.
• Phone asleep or in another app: the timer keeps running and still goes off. Apple states this directly.
• Low Power Mode: Apple's list of what Low Power Mode limits doesn't include timers or alarms.
• Third-party timer apps: Focus can silence them unless the app uses Apple's alarm system (iOS 26+) and you've granted its Alarm permission, or you've allowed the app in the Focus.
• Apple Watch: "Hey Siri, set a timer for 20 minutes" works on the watch, but a watch in Silent mode silences its alerts — you'll get a tap, not a sound.

The 30-second test

1. Turn on Do Not Disturb (or your Sleep Focus) and Silent mode.
2. Clock → Timers → When Timer Ends → pick a loud sound (not Stop Playing).
3. Set a 10-second timer, lock the phone, and put it face down.

If you hear it, every timer on that phone will ring the same way.

Need a timer on a computer instead?

Our online timer runs in any browser with presets, pause, +1 minute and a loud beep — useful when your phone is in Do Not Disturb for work and you don't want to touch it. For "wake me up after a nap", the pages like wake me up in 20 minutes set it for you.

And if the timer you keep ignoring is the one that's supposed to get you out of bed, a louder sound won't help. WakeUpBroo is an iPhone alarm with no snooze and no dismiss button — it stops only when you type a rotating code from wakeupbroo.com/code on a device across the room.