Setting an alarm on your Macbook isn’t as straightforward as it seems. In order to keep track of how many words per minute you’re writing, you may be setting reminders for your daily routine or even timing the meal in the oven. Apple’s built-in Clock app is not available on the Macbook, unlike on your iPhone and iPad. As a consequence, you can’t set alarms on your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or even the more portable MacBook.


There are a few differences between setting an alarm on an iPhone or iPad and doing it on a MacBook, but it is still doable. There is no alarm clock app for the iPhone or iPad. In the MacBook settings, you may enable alerts and notifications for the time zone you’ve chosen.

how to set alarm on macbook

Here in this tutorial we are going to discuss some best ways to set alarm on MacBook Pro or Air.

Using the Mac to Set an Alarm

Using Reminder

One of the simplest and best ways to obtain notifications on the time you have set the assignment is to use the Reminder option. As with iPhone/iPad alarms, you may create numerous reminders on Calender and get a brief notification about the warning at the same time. In this way, you’ll be able to get both an alert and a reminder for the work at hand. In order to activate this, complete the following steps:

  • Go to Launchpad on your MacBook from Dock or directly tap on Reminders from the dock.
reminders launchpad
  • To open the Reminders app, choose it from the list of apps.
  • Tap on the Plus icon (+) to add new reminder alert
create new reminder
  • Write your task and after the competition, click on the information (i) icon next to the reminder you have created.
seta alrm using reminder
  • Tick remind me option and set the date and time to receive an alert.
  • Click Done once all set.

Now the reminder is activated, there is another option to receive a reminder by using at a location option instead of choosing only remind option. You can also tick both. But you have to enable the Current location settings from the Privacy option.

Use Calander to set Alarm on MacBook

As already discussed MacBook does not have a particular app to set alarm but all time associated apps provide this feature and you can take a lot from this. Here’s how the calendar works to enable alarm on Mac.

  • Go to MacBook’s Dock and either tap on Launchpad and look for Calendar or directly tap on Calendar from the dock.
calendar dock
  • The calendar preview mode is there and you can choose the view mode from Day, Week, Month or Year from the top tab area.
calendars set alarm
  • Double tap on the day/date on which you wish to set alarm.
  • The small box appears next to the date you have selected. You can enter here a new event, location, set a time when you want to receive alert and at last, you can also attach links, notes, and attachments.
set alarm using calendars

Once done with these steps, close the Calendar app and your alarm is activated. If still, you are interested to have the app like Clock on an iOS device, then we recommend you to go for a third-party app that works quite similar to Clock works on iPhone and iPad.

A Mac alarm clock application

On our list we found Wake Up Time – Alarm Clock is best and top rated app for this. Download and install it on your PC and follow some instructions to set alarm.

  • Launch Wake Up Time app on your Mac.
wake up time app
  • On the right side under Alarm time, set time and below this, you can select a different sound tone from the list.
set alarm mac app
  • The alarm gets activated once you tap the turn ON button. You can also see the alarm status below.
set alarm on macbook

You can use the sleep feature to pause the alarm for some minutes which is not possible on the above two methods.

Activate an Alarm on the Web


You may use an online web app instead of the Reminders app or Siri to set yourself a reminder. To make this work, make sure your MacBook isn’t muted. Web programmes don’t often have access to your computer’s system settings. There is a free alternative available at vclock.com, as well.

On the website, click the Set Alarm button, and a box will show up for you to fill out the information needed. Set your alarm for a certain time of day using the hours and minutes menu. Click the Start button after you’ve completed all the necessary information. On the left navigation bar of the web app, there are choices for a timer, a stopwatch, and the world clock.

In order to use any of the following techniques, your Mac must be switched on. Otherwise, none of them work and you are not going to receive any alerts and notifications on Mac.

We hope you find this tutorial informative and definitely start setting up an alarm on your Mac. For the latest tech tutorials, deals follow the madestuffeasy community on  FacebookTwitter. For regular updates, you can subscribe to our newsletter.

Relates Articles you may like!

Similar Posts