Tracking a Partner's Snoring
Capture the snorer across the bed, and prove who it was.
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Maybe your partner swears they sleep silently while you lie awake next to a freight train. Maybe you want something more concrete than "you snored all night" before you bring it up. Snore Timeline records the room and turns the night into a timeline you can both scroll through in the morning. This guide covers aiming the recording at the snorer, working out who made which sound, and sharing the proof.
What to expect first
One thing to know before your first night. The app records whatever the microphone hears, and it can't tell whose body a snore came from. When two people share a bed, both end up on the same recording. Two things let you work out who's who anyway:
- Closeness. The app captures the loudest, clearest sound from whoever is nearest the phone. Put the phone near the snorer and their sounds take over the recording.
- Listening back. Playing the audio for an episode is the surest way to confirm who a given snore belongs to. You know your partner's snore when you hear it.
So it comes down to aiming the recording with placement, then using playback to settle any doubt. The app does the detection. You do the attribution. For a full walkthrough of starting a session, see Getting Started.
Placement between two sleepers
Placement is the biggest lever you have. Aim it at the person you want to capture:
- Put the phone on their side of the bed. A nightstand or any surface close to their head works well. Centered on the bed, or on your side, won't.
- Keep it about 1 to 2 feet from their head. Closer means louder and clearer. Sound fades with distance, so a phone tucked near the snorer favors their sounds over yours from across the bed.
- Plug it in and lay it face-down. An overnight session runs the battery down, and face-down switches off the Always-On Display on iPhones that have one.
- Quiet the room. Fans, white noise machines, HVAC, air purifiers, an open window, and a TV left on can cover up the breathing patterns the app listens for. Once the room sits above 45 dB at rest, more sounds get labeled Loud Sound instead of snoring.
If you snore too and want the timeline to favor your partner, lower the detection sensitivity. A lower setting only catches the clearer, louder snoring, which tends to be whoever is closest to the phone. How Detection Works covers the sensitivity tiers and the background noise that gets in the way.
Whose snore is it?
The app doesn't separate two sleepers, so it won't tag a snore with a name. You do that part by ear. If your partner snores loudly and is close to the phone, those sounds come through clearly, but a snore from the far side of the bed can still land on the same timeline. When you're not sure, listen.
- Open the night and find an episode you want to check.
- Play it back. The app starts playback about 2 seconds before the episode begins, so you get a little context before the sound itself.
- Decide by ear. A snore from the person next to the phone sounds loud and full. A faint, distant one is probably from across the bed.
Audio recorded in a quiet room plays back clearer than the room sounded at the time, because the app shapes quiet recordings during playback to bring out breathing and speech. That makes a partner's softer sounds easier to pick out. The audio enhancement section explains when this kicks in. And keep in mind this is sound analysis for your own insight. The app doesn't diagnose sleep apnea or any condition.
Review the night together
The morning after is where the "you snored all night" conversation gets its evidence. You don't need to scrub the whole night. Jump to the parts that matter:
- Open the episode list to see every detected episode. Each one shows its volume in decibels, so you can scan for the loudest stretches.
- Long-press the timeline to jump to the nearest episode, then tap to play it.
- Read the loudness. Snore Timeline rates snoring as faint below about 40 dB, light from 40 to 48 dB, audible from 48 to 56 dB, and heavy at 56 dB and up. Reach for the heavy ones to make the point.
- Check the per-night totals. The summary counts snoring signals for the night, alongside separate counts for gasps and coughs.
Snores close together get grouped into episodes. A 30-second gap with no snoring starts a new one, so a single noisy stretch reads as one episode instead of dozens of tiny ones. To compare one night against another, tap the date label above the waveform to open the calendar, where nights with recorded snoring carry a dot. Episodes & Events breaks down what each episode card shows.
