Questions, bug reports and ideas all come to one address, and a person reads every one: hello@composurealarm.com. The answers to the questions we hear most are below.
Email is the one support channel. There is no account to log into and no ticket system - just write. Inside the app, Settings › Send Feedback and Report a Problem open a pre-addressed email with your Composure and iOS versions already filled in.
Take a screenshot and TestFlight will offer to send it to us with your notes. Or use Report a Problem in the app's Settings, which fills in the build for you. For anything about an alarm, a screenshot of Checkup is the single most useful thing you can include.
Yes. Composure is built on AlarmKit, the alarm system Apple introduced in iOS 26, and alarms ring through Silent mode and through Focus by design. They ring at your iPhone's ringer volume, so if an alarm seems quiet, check the ringer first and then the alarm's Loudness setting.
When the alarm fires, iOS shows its own full-screen alarm with a slide-to-stop control - that screen belongs to Apple, and it works even if Composure has not been opened in days.
iOS requires an app to have your permission before it can schedule an alarm that rings through Silent, and it asks once, when you set your first alarm. Without it nothing can ring. If you tapped Don't Allow, turn it on in iOS Settings › Apps › Composure; the Alarms tab shows an "Alarms are off" notice until you do, and Settings › Checkup shows the state of every permission an alarm depends on.
Every time Composure opens, it compares your alarm list with what iOS is actually holding and re-arms anything that is missing - after an app update, a restore to a new phone, or a change made on another of your devices. Settings › Checkup shows both numbers side by side, and a Re-arm all alarms button if they ever disagree.
Composure also asks iOS for a short daily background window to repeat that repair on its own; Checkup shows when it last ran. iOS decides when, and whether, that window is granted, so it is a safety net rather than a promise. Opening the app after an update is the sure way.
Focus modes and Silent are not on that list because alarms ring through both. If everything checks out and it still didn't ring, email us with the alarm time and a screenshot of Checkup.
No alarm app can promise it will always ring - iOS updates, hardware and settings are outside our control. For a flight, a shift or medication, keep an independent backup.
Insurance against stopping the alarm and drifting back off. When it is on, an alarm with a mission rings again if you stop it without finishing the mission - Gentle at +5 and +10 minutes, Standard at +3 and +7, Persistent at +2, +4 and +8. Finishing the mission cancels the follow-ups. They are scheduled with iOS ahead of time, so they work even if the app never opens, and they ring at full loudness straight away, ignoring Gentle fade-in and the Loudness tier - escalating is the point.
Your phone vibrates quietly for a while before the sound starts - from 5 seconds up to 2 minutes, your choice - so you get a chance to rise before the room hears it. Stopping the vibration does not stop the ring; it is the sound that is the alarm. It isn't offered when the sound is set to Vibration only, since there is nothing to escalate to.
Snooze can be turned off per alarm, or set to 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes. On an alarm with a mission - or one with Start the Morning Flow switched on - snooze is a quiet button on the wake screen inside Composure, and you can cap it at 1, 2 or 3 snoozes (or leave it unlimited); once the cap is spent the button disappears. The alarm comes back when it re-rings - a pause, not an escape. An alarm with neither uses the snooze on iOS's own alarm screen, and never opens the app.
Both live under the + button on the Alarms tab, next to a normal alarm.
A quick alarm is a one-shot for a nap or a timer: pick a number of minutes (or hours, up to 12), and it rings once and then removes itself from your list. No mission, no Wake-Up Check - just the alarm.
A habit is something you want to come back to several times a day - water, a stretch, prayer, medicine - with its own times and days. By default a habit arrives as a quiet notification, which needs notification permission (iOS asks once). Turn on Ring like an alarm and it becomes a real alarm through Silent and Focus instead. Either way, the habit's name appears on your lock screen when it arrives, so name it with that in mind. Deleting a habit stops its reminders on this iPhone, and on your other devices once they sync.
Every regular alarm has an escape hatch. Under the mission is I can't do this right now; confirming it silences the alarm, skips the mission and cancels that alarm's Wake-Up Check (a repeating alarm stays set for its next day). And iOS's own slide-to-stop on the ringing screen always works - Composure never takes that away.
Thirty-nine wake sounds, plus the system default and Vibration only. They are grouped in the picker: melodies that start soft and build, a Bold & Loud set for heavy sleepers (Twin Bell, Heavy Sleeper, Klaxon, Reveille and more), nature recordings (ocean, rain, birdsong, a brook, forest wind) and white, pink and brown noise beds. Sunrise Piano and Classic Alarm are free, along with the system default and Vibration only; the rest of the library is part of Composure Complete.
Each alarm has its own Loudness. Full plays the sound at its full level, Standard is about ten decibels softer and Low about ten softer again - each step is an unmistakable drop, and every sound is levelled so that Low is still a real alarm - all relative to your iPhone's ringer volume, which sets the ceiling. Low is meant for light sleepers and shared bedrooms; if you sleep deeply, use Standard or Full. The system default sound has no Loudness control - it simply rings at your ringer volume - so pick a Composure sound if you want to adjust it.
The sound starts soft and rises to your chosen loudness over about eight seconds, so you are woken rather than startled. For a longer, slower wake, use Bedside mode, which brightens the screen into a sunrise as the alarm nears. Wake-Up Check follow-ups ignore fade-in on purpose.
Pick Surprise Me in the sound picker and Composure draws a sound from the pool of sounds you have approved each time the alarm is scheduled, never the same one twice in a row.
No, and it is worth saying plainly: no alarm app on iOS can. AlarmKit, the system that lets an alarm ring through Silent and from a locked phone, only plays sounds bundled inside the app or the system default. A streaming song is not something an app can hand to iOS to play while it is asleep. If an app advertises music alarms, it is playing the song from the foreground and will not wake you if it isn't open. Composure's answer is a library of bundled sounds that were composed and recorded for waking.
Yes. Sleep sounds are free for everyone: water, rain and air, birdsong and noise beds, with a sleep timer of 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, or until your next alarm (that option is disabled when nothing is scheduled, and if the alarm is more than 12 hours away the sound fades out after 12 hours). They keep playing with the screen locked. Find them on the Alarms tab under Sleep sounds.
A mission is what you do to prove you're actually up. It replaces the thoughtless snooze at arm's length, and the sun rises on screen as you go.
Or choose Just the alarm and wake to the sound alone. Missions are untimed, and every regular alarm keeps the escape hatch described above.
Steps counts with your iPhone's pedometer, which needs Motion & Fitness access; iOS asks the first time a Steps mission runs. If it was declined, Settings › Checkup says so and links to the iOS setting. Shake and Squats read the motion sensors directly and need no permission. Whenever motion is unavailable, the mission screen tells you and the escape hatch is right there - you will never be trapped by a sensor.
Physical missions are voluntary; the math mission is always available to everyone, and typing (another non-physical option) is included with Composure Complete. Composure is not a medical device. Please check with a physician before using physical missions if you have any condition affected by exercise - heart, blood pressure, joints or balance - or if you are pregnant; do the movements in a clear space with secure footing and a firm grip on your phone, and stop at once if you feel pain, dizziness or shortness of breath. The app shows this note once before the first physical mission is enabled, and the full text is in Settings › Health & Safety.
What happens after the alarm. Turn on only the parts that serve you, in the order you want them: an affirmation, the quote of the day (365 of them, each with author and source), a daily Bible verse (WEB, KJV, ASV or BSB), today's goals, your life goals, your vision board, and the morning's weather if you have turned that on. The Morning Flow runs once per calendar day; if a second alarm fires later, it still runs its mission and then simply tells you you're already up.
Skip the rest is always there, and skipping is fine - showing up is what counts, and it never breaks a streak.
A short evening ritual, part of Composure Complete: confirm tomorrow's alarm, check in on today's goals, set up tomorrow's, write your intentions, keep the day's highlights and rate the day with one tap. Your intentions greet you in the next Morning Flow. The alarm check opens the ritual and the closing screen ends it; the steps in between can be switched off and reordered, and Finish later saves what you have written. A bedtime reminder, if you turn it on, can nudge you toward it up to an hour before bed.
A new goal is one-time: check it off and it stays done until you clear it with the X. Tap the repeat arrows on a goal to make it daily - it resets every midnight so it is there again tomorrow. Life Goals are the big ones, kept in view every morning rather than ticked off day to day; tap a life goal's seal to mark it achieved.
Onto your iPhone, and - if iCloud sync is on - into your own private iCloud database, the same place as your goals and journal. They are never uploaded to us; we have no servers to upload them to. Remove a photo from the board and, with sync on, it leaves the board on every device.
The Mornings journal keeps each morning you showed up for, with your intentions, highlights, day rating and completed goals. The streak is a count, never a scoreboard: it shows the run ending today - or yesterday, if this morning hasn't happened yet, so an unfinished today never breaks it - and your longest ever. Skipping the rest of the Morning Flow still records the morning.
A nightstand clock. Keep the phone on its stand and the screen dims, then brightens into a sunrise as your alarm nears. Screen brightness is restored when you leave it. It is free.
Yes - Next alarm: the small size shows your next wake-up, and the medium size adds the quote for the day. It follows your chosen look (Forest or Golden Hour). Add it the usual way: press and hold the home screen, tap the add button and search for Composure.
The same widget comes in the lock-screen accessory sizes - rectangular, inline (above the clock) and circular - so the next alarm is where you last look at night. When no alarm is set, the circular one shows a placeholder rather than a time.
There is also a Tonight Live Activity: complete Turn Down in the evening and tomorrow's alarm sits on your lock screen through the night, then goes away when the alarm rings. It only appears when the alarm is within the next 12 hours, and choosing Finish later doesn't start it.
Composure has no accounts of its own. Your alarms, habits, goals, journal and photos are stored on your iPhone and, when iCloud is on for Composure, in the private iCloud database that belongs to your Apple Account. Only your devices can read it. We operate no servers and cannot see it, and Apple's App Privacy label for Composure is "Data Not Collected".
Sign a second iPhone into the same Apple Account and Composure fills in there on its own. An enabled alarm is armed on every iPhone that has it, so if you only want one phone ringing, switch the alarm off on the other.
If iCloud is off for Composure, everything lives on this iPhone only and will not move to a new phone. Settings › Checkup has an iCloud row that says which it is.
When Composure launched, it could not open its synced database, so rather than fail it opened a local copy and kept your alarms working. Nothing has been deleted. Sync resumes on a later launch that succeeds - usually the next one. If Checkup says Local store was reset; iCloud is re-downloading, Composure set a fresh database aside from a damaged one and is pulling your data back down from iCloud; a Recovered backups row lets you restore the set-aside copy at the next launch if anything is missing. If either message stays for more than a day, please email us.
Free, forever: the full alarm engine - through Silent and Focus, Wake-Up Check, Vibrate first, snooze limits, quick alarms and habits - with the Math mission, the quote of the day, Bedside mode, and sleep sounds with the timer. No ads in either tier, ever.
Composure Complete adds every wake sound, the Get moving and Type it out missions, affirmations, the daily verse, today's goals, life goals, the vision board, daytime reminders and the Turn Down evening ritual.
Composure Complete is $19.99 a year or $4.99 a month, and both plans include a two-week free trial for new subscribers. Composure Forever is the same set of features as a single $99.99 purchase, with nothing to renew or cancel. All three support Family Sharing. Prices are in US dollars; the App Store shows the equivalent in your own currency, and what it shows is what you pay.
A trial converts to a paid subscription automatically unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. The trial is offered once per Apple Account across both plans.
Sign in with the same Apple Account and tap Settings › Restore Purchases (it is on the unlock screen too). If you get Composure through Family Sharing, the family member who bought it manages it.
Subscriptions are managed by Apple, not by us. In Composure, Settings › Manage Subscription opens your Apple subscriptions; you can also go to iOS Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. Cancel at least 24 hours before the current period (or the trial) ends to avoid the next charge; everything stays unlocked until the period runs out. Composure Forever has nothing to cancel.
Refunds for App Store purchases are decided by Apple, not by developers - we cannot grant one ourselves. You can ask Apple from inside the app with Settings › Request a Refund, which opens Apple's own refund sheet, or at reportaproblem.apple.com. We will never make it hard to leave.
Nothing. No ads, no tracking, no analytics, no accounts, no servers. Your data lives on your iPhone and in your own iCloud. What leaves your iPhone goes only to Apple - iCloud sync, your App Store purchase, and, if you turn it on, the approximate location for wake weather - and the only thing that ever reaches us is an email you choose to send. The full policy is at composurealarm.com/privacy.
Yes. Settings › Export Your Data writes a readable journal (Markdown) and a machine-readable copy (JSON) of your goals, affirmations and journal, and hands them to the iOS share sheet so you can save or send them wherever you like. Photos, alarms and habits are not included in the export.
Settings › Erase All Data deletes every alarm, habit, goal, affirmation, journal entry and photo from this iPhone and, when iCloud sync is on, from your iCloud too - Composure waits for iCloud to confirm before it calls the erase done, so keep the app open for a few seconds. There is no undo. Your Composure Complete purchase is unaffected; it stays with your Apple Account.
Only if you turn on Settings › Weather when you wake, which is off by default. iOS asks for location permission when you turn it on. Then, at wake time only, Composure reads your approximate location, rounds it to about a kilometre, and sends it to Apple's weather service to fetch the morning's conditions for the wake screen. It never reaches us, and nothing is stored.
Two things carry your own words: the daytime affirmation reminder shows your affirmation in the notification, and a habit shows its name when it arrives. Anyone who can see your lock screen can read them. iOS's Settings › Notifications › Show Previews controls when notification previews appear.
Composure is built to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, applied to a native iOS app. The details that matter day to day:
One thing is Apple's: the full-screen alarm that appears when an alarm rings is iOS's own, and its layout and VoiceOver behaviour are the system's. Missions are untimed, and every regular alarm has the escape hatch.
iPhone, running iOS 26.1 or later. Composure is built on AlarmKit, which arrived with iOS 26, and there is no way to ring through Silent on earlier versions. It is designed for iPhone only and is not offered for iPad, Mac or Apple Vision. Two looks are included, Forest (dark) and Golden Hour, and the clock can follow your iPhone's time format or be set to 12- or 24-hour.