Sleep timer · iPhone & iPad
Make the music stop
after you fall asleep.
A sleep timer is the whole answer. Here is how to choose one, how long to set it for, and why the way it stops matters more than the minute it stops.
Free to use. Pro is one payment — forever.
- 15 · 30 · 45 · 60 · 90minutes to choose from
- End of songor let this one finish first
- 8-second fadeit fades down, it never cuts
What you are actually asking for
The request is easy to say and easy to get wrong: music while you are falling asleep, and no music at four in the morning. The thing that does it is a sleep timer — something that counts down while you listen and turns the sound off at the end without you having to be awake for it.
Nothing else in the room will do this for you. A speaker plays for as long as something sends it audio. Headphones play until the battery gives up, hours after you stopped hearing them. Falling asleep with a queue running means the queue keeps running, and the thing that eventually wakes you is not the quiet — it is a track four albums later that turns out to be much louder than the one you fell asleep to.
The three ways people try
Pausing before you sleep is the version everyone tries first, and it fails for the obvious reason: the moment you want the music to stop is a moment you are not conscious for.
The system timer is hidden in the Clock app. Set a timer, change When Timer Ends from a ringtone to Stop Playing, and whatever is playing stops when it runs out. It works with any audio on the phone, which is its real advantage. Its limits are that it cuts rather than fades, it cannot wait for the song you are on to finish, and setting it means leaving the app you are listening in.
A timer inside the player knows things the system timer cannot: what is playing, how loud it is, and where the current track ends. That is what lets it fade instead of cut, and it is the only way to get the option people want most, which is not a number of minutes at all — it is let this song finish, then stop.
How long to set it for
There are two ways to get this wrong and they feel completely different. Too short, and the music stops while you are still awake; the silence arrives as an event, you notice it, and now you are reaching for the phone. Too long, and it plays for hours into an empty room — a flat battery in the morning and a decent chance of being woken by something in the queue you did not choose.
The useful way to pick is not to guess how long you take to fall asleep. It is to ask what the music is doing. If it is there to cover the sound of the room while you go under, it only has to outlast that, and a short timer is safer than a long one, because being woken by silence is milder than being woken by a chorus. If it is a record you are listening to on purpose and sleep is the thing that interrupts it, set the timer to the record.
Y2K Player gives you five lengths — 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 minutes — plus the end-of-song option. Fifteen is for when you are already going. Thirty is the one most nights want. Forty-five and sixty are for when the timer is set before the lights go off rather than after. Ninety is for music you would rather still be there if you surface once.
There is no eight-hour option, and that is deliberate: at that point you do not want a sleep timer, you want the phone on a charger.
How it stops matters more than when
This is the part most sleep timers get wrong and most people never think about until it has woken them twice. Sound stopping abruptly is a change, and a change is exactly the kind of thing that pulls someone out of the shallow part of sleep. A timer that cuts the audio dead at thirty minutes has, for a lot of people, just replaced one problem with a quieter one.
A fade avoids that because there is no moment. Y2K Player fades the music down over about eight seconds and then pauses. It is not a straight line down, either — the level holds for most of the fade and falls away at the end, so it does not read as somebody turning a volume knob. It reads as the music being over.
The end-of-song mode has nothing to fade and does not try to. The track reaches its own ending and the player simply does not start the next one. If you have been putting on one specific song to sleep to, that is the honest way to stop: on the ending the song already has.
Setting one, in the dark, in about five seconds
All of it happens on the player screen, on the song that is already playing. There is no separate settings page and nothing to set up in advance.
- Start the songPlay whatever you are falling asleep to. The timer attaches to playback rather than to a playlist, so it does not matter what is queued behind it.
- Open the player’s … menuTap the … button on the player screen. The sheet that slides up has a Sleep Timer section near the bottom of it.
- Pick a lengthA row of chips: 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 min. One tap arms the timer and closes the sheet. The row scrolls sideways on smaller phones, where five of them do not fit at once.
- Or let the song finish instead“End of this song” sits just above the chips. It stops when the current track runs out and does not start the next one — even if repeat is on.
- Put the phone downLock the screen. The timer runs on the clock while the music plays, so nothing has to stay on screen and the app does not have to stay in front.
- Change your mindReopen the same sheet. The header shows how many minutes are left, or says “end of song”, and a Turn off row cancels it.
What the timer does, exactly
- Five lengths and one condition. 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, or “End of this song”. The two kinds are mutually exclusive — arming one clears the other, so you can never have two timers quietly disagreeing.
- It fades, then pauses. About eight seconds of fade, on a curve that keeps the level up until the end. The minute timers fade; the end-of-song stop does not need to.
- End of song beats repeat. If the track is set to repeat, the stop still wins when the song runs out. That is the whole point of the option.
- It runs on the clock, not on the screen. Armed at 23:10 for 45 minutes, it ends at 23:55 — screen off, phone face down, app in the background while the music plays.
- It lasts the session. Nothing is written to disk, so quitting the app clears the timer. Nothing you armed at bedtime is still armed tomorrow afternoon.
- It pauses rather than stops. The song, the position, and the tempo and pitch you set are all still there in the morning.
- You can see it and cancel it. While a timer runs, the sheet’s header reads “Sleep Timer · 23m left”, or “end of song”, and a Turn off row appears under the lengths.
- It is part of Pro. Free to use. Pro is one payment — forever.
What goes wrong, and what to check
It stops one player, not the phone. A sleep timer inside an app ends that app’s playback. If something else is also making sound, it carries on. The Clock app timer is the blunter instrument that covers everything.
Force-quitting cancels it. Swiping the app away takes the timer with it, because the timer only exists while the app is running. That cuts both ways, and it is the right trade: nothing is ever left armed by accident.
If you already paused, nothing happens. A fade needs something to fade. If the music was stopped before the timer landed, the timer expires without doing anything.
Your alarm is not involved. A sleep timer pauses a player. Nothing you set here can stop a morning alarm from going off.
Headphones coming out already pauses it. If an earbud goes back in its case or a Bluetooth speaker drops off, playback pauses on its own — route handling rather than the timer, but the same outcome.
The player it lives in
Y2K Player is a music player for files you already own, imported from Files, from a share sheet, or pulled out of a video. It plays them offline, with no account, and it lets you change the tempo, the pitch and the sound while they play. The sleep timer is one row in the player’s own menu — which is why it can fade instead of cut, and why it knows where the song ends.
Questions about stopping music while you sleep
The ones worth answering before you set one, rather than after it has woken you.
How do I make music stop after I fall asleep on an iPhone?
Use a sleep timer. There are two kinds: the one in the Clock app, which stops whatever audio is playing when the timer runs out, and one built into the player itself. The built-in kind is better for music because it can fade the sound down instead of cutting it, and because it can wait for the current song to finish. In Y2K Player it is in the player’s … menu — 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, or the end of this song.
Can it stop at the end of the song instead of after a set number of minutes?
Yes, and it is the option most people are really after. “End of this song” waits for the current track to reach its own ending, then pauses instead of starting the next one. It takes priority over repeat, so a song set to loop still stops there.
Does the music fade out or does it just cut off?
It fades. The minute timers fade the level down over about eight seconds and then pause. The fade is weighted so the volume holds up for most of that time and drops away at the end, which is much less noticeable than a straight fade and far less noticeable than a cut.
Does the timer keep running with the screen off?
Yes. It counts against the wall clock while the music plays, so locking the phone, putting it face down or leaving the app in the background changes nothing about when it ends.
What happens if I close the app?
The timer is cancelled. It is held for the session only and never written to disk, so force-quitting the app clears it and nothing is left armed the next day. It also means a timer is not something you set and then swipe the app away on.
Can I set a custom length, like 20 minutes?
No — the lengths are fixed at 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 minutes, plus the end-of-song option. Five chips you can hit in the dark without reading them was the trade made against a picker you have to aim at.
Will the sleep timer stop my alarm?
No. It pauses playback in the player and has nothing to do with the clock. An alarm set for the morning is unaffected.
Is the sleep timer free?
The sleep timer is part of Pro. Importing your files, the library, playback and the tempo and pitch controls are free on every track. Free to use. Pro is one payment — forever.
Where to go next
- Slowed and reverbThe sound most people are actually falling asleep to. Tempo down, a room around it.Open →
- Slow down a songThe tempo control on its own, with and without the pitch following it.Open →
- Plays offlineNo account, no catalogue, no connection. Your own files, on the device.Open →
- What Pro opensThe sleep timer, the effect rack and the rest — one payment, no renewal.Open →
Put it on. Let it turn itself off.
Y2K Player plays the files you already own, at the speed and pitch you want them — and stops on its own once you have stopped listening.
Free to download and keep. Pro is a one-time purchase — buy it once and it never renews.