Describe it, and it exists

Type “rain on a canvas tent”, “box fan in a big empty room”, or “a creek over smooth stones”. Sleep Drift generates that sound on your iPhone. What you describe is never picked from a library — it is made, from your words, the moment you ask. (Twelve one-tap classics are built in, made the first time you play one, for the nights you would rather not think of anything.)

Recorded sleep tracks repeat every few minutes, and once you have noticed the join you cannot stop hearing it. Because Sleep Drift can make more takes of your sound on demand, it does something a recording cannot: several takes rotate at random intervals, each entered at a random point, over a second bed running at a deliberately different length. The composite effectively does not come round again in one night — here is why that is the claim worth making, and not “it never loops”.

Hear it

Four of the sounds the app ships with, made by the same engine that makes yours. Nothing plays until you press one.

Each of these is a single short take on repeat, so you are hearing the texture rather than the night. In the app several takes of your sound rotate over a second bed of a different length, which is what pushes the repeat past the point where you would notice it.

What it looks like at 3am

The Create screen with a description typed into the prompt field and the
twelve built-in classics below it.

Describe itType the sound, or tap one of the twelve classics. The dice writes a prompt on the nights you cannot.

The Sleep screen, with the sleep timer and gentle wake settings.

Set the nightA timer that fades out slowly, and a morning sound that rises from a whisper over two minutes.

Nightstand mode: a dim split-flap clock over a starfield, with the
nightlight slider at the bottom.

Put it downNightstand mode dims to something you can read at 3am, in seven faces, with an amber nightlight of its own.

What is in it

Anything you can word

Unlimited sounds, made on demand, kept in your library for good.

Layers, not one sound

“A stream over rocks, birds in the trees” is built as two layers and mixed, so you can describe a whole room.

Your own language

Describe a sound in any of nine languages. Your words are translated on the phone before it is made, so nothing is sent anywhere. (Needs iOS 18 and Apple’s language pack for your language.)

The classics, ready

Twelve of them: white, brown and pink noise, box fan, air conditioner, rain on a roof, distant thunderstorm, ocean, mountain creek, campfire, night forest, night train.

Sleep timer that fades

A slow fade out, so nothing cuts off mid-breath.

Gentle wake

Your morning sound rises from a whisper over two minutes. If the phone has closed the app overnight, a notification fires at the same time as a backstop, so the morning still happens.

Nightstand mode

An ultra-dim clock you can read at 3am, in seven faces from minimal to split-flap, with a choice of backgrounds and a warm amber nightlight you can turn up on its own.

One knob, warm to bright

A single slider tilts the whole sound from brown-noise warmth to a brighter hiss — one control instead of three separate noise files, and it works on anything you have made, not just the built-in ones.

A dice, for blank nights

Tap it and it writes a prompt for you. For the nights when you want something new and cannot think of anything.

Favourites, kept

Star what works and it stays at the top of your library, with an icon you pick for it. Nothing you make is ever deleted.

It runs on your phone

No account. No servers. No internet after install. The sound is synthesised on the device itself, which means nothing you type and nothing you make ever leaves it — and it works on a plane, in a cabin, or in airplane mode all night.

Sleep Drift collects nothing at all. Not usage, not analytics, not your prompts. See the privacy policy.

If it is for a nursery

Guidance for infant sleep puts all-night sound under about 50 dB, with the speaker across the room rather than beside the cot. Sleep Drift does not measure that and does not pretend to: turning a phone microphone into a calibrated sound-level meter needs a constant that differs per handset, and a number that is wrong by 20 dB about an infant's hearing is worse than no number at all.

The test that works needs no hardware: if you have to raise your voice over it, it is too loud.

Subscribe, or unlock forever

Your first sound is free to make, and it is yours to keep. Until you unlock the app, saved sounds play five minutes at a time. Subscribe and the first week is free if you have not used the trial before — that week is Apple's, applied by the App Store the first time you subscribe, so you can sleep a whole night to it before deciding. Or skip the subscription and unlock it forever with one payment. Nothing you have made is ever deleted: your library stays playable either way.

An Apple Account that has already used the free week does not get another one. Where it applies, the free week becomes a paid subscription unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. A subscription renews monthly or yearly until you cancel it and is billed to your Apple Account; manage or cancel it in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions. The one-time unlock is not a subscription and never renews.