Notifications that pop up in the corner of your Mac’s screen can really help, as they remind you of an upcoming meeting. But when you have a deadline or are in the middle of something, notifications for every message or email can be distracting and even annoying.
The good news is that you can easily tweak your settings so you only get notifications from the apps you want whenever you want and no notifications from the apps you don’t want. You can also pause notifications at any time. Here’s how.
To temporarily pause notifications
- Click the icon (which looks like a bulleted list) in the far right corner of the menu bar to access Notification Center.
- Swipe up and switch to “Do Not Disturb” at the top of the sidebar. This will pause notifications until midnight or until you turn them off.
- You can still see your Notifications by going to Notification Center, but you won’t get alerts for them.
Schedule a period when you will not receive notifications
- Click on the apple icon in the upper left corner of the menu bar
- Choose “System Preferences”
- Open Notifications
- Select Do Not Disturb. You can now set a time to activate Do Not Disturb mode. You can also choose to enable Do Not Disturb mode when the screen is in sleep mode, mirroring the screen, or when your screen is locked (not available in earlier versions of macOS). You can also decide whether or not to allow calls when Do Not Disturb is on.
Turn notifications on or off for individual apps
In the same Notification Center, you can manage notifications for your apps.
- Find the app you want to tweak in the left column in the notifications window. Use the toggle button to turn notifications on or off.
- You can also change how notifications appear. There are also additional options for notifications, such as whether it appears and makes a sound when your screen is locked.
