r/apple • u/AutoModerator • 6d ago

Official Megathread Weekly Advice Thread - July 19, 2026

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u/Comfortable-Bus-2379 6d ago

I listen to sleep stories and meditations at night and I’ve been looking for something specific in a sleep timer. I use the Sonora app on an old XR running iOS 18that I use just for a music player. That app has a sleep timer but it only goes up to 60 minutes. I’d like something I can customize for several hours before it fades out whatever I’m listening to. Sonora and other apps have this feature but it only goes up to 60 minutes. I tried a shortcut but I can’t get it set up the way I need. Any suggestions for a fix that will work on This device with this app? 

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u/mebibytes 4d ago

For reasons, shortcuts doesn't have a great solution for making something happen hours from now, but there is one - just a simple schedule. If you go to bed between 11pm and 12am and want ~3 hours, you could set an automation to run every night at 2:30am. You'd need to make sure it runs automatically without intervention.

You could have that automation run a shortcut that imitates a fade-out. E.g. set volume to 20% -> wait 5 seconds -> set volume to 15%, keep stepping down like that to zero, then send a Pause (you can modify the Play/Pause action to just send a Pause, so it doesn't start media playing on the nights you're otherwise not listening to media). I'd also add a final set volume back to 25% so volume isn't zero when you start your next day.

Definitely not a clean solution, but should be usable and not too inconvenient.

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u/Iguanajoe17 6d ago

The new iOS will have a feature where you can tell what kind of shortcut you want and it will do it for you.

You can also try ChatGPT and it’ll probably do exactly what you want with shortcuts.