How to Take Full Control of Notifications on macOS

App notifications need careful balancing across Android, iOS, Windows, and of course macOS. Too many of them and you're in a state of constant distraction; too few of them, and you risk missing out on something important that one of your programs is trying to tell you.

macOS has you covered when it comes to finding the right balance for you, providing a full suite of controls for managing interruptions and staying up to date with your notifications. It doesn't take long to set up these notification options, and then once they're configured, you can use Focus modes for specific scenarios (like working or watching movies).

Note that some individual apps come with their own notification settings, in addition to the options macOS offers you (and the tricks you can do with third-party tools). Discord, for example, gives you a bunch of options for choosing what you get notified about.

App notification settings

Every macOS app should ask for permission to show notifications when you first install it. However you respond to this first request, you can configure notifications for all your installed programs at any time by opening the Apple menu from the macOS menu bar (top left), then choosing System Settings and Notifications.

First, you get the chance to set the notification settings for the operating system as a whole: You can choose whether or not pop-ups appear when your Mac is locked, and when the display is asleep, and when you're mirroring or sharing the screen. You're able to control whether previews are shown with notifications by default, and you can also give Apple Intelligence permission to summarize your notifications.

Setting individual app notifications. Credit: Lifehacker

Next, you can control notifications for individual apps. As with iOS, you get a bit of nuance here: As well as turning notifications on or off completely for each of your apps, you can also change the type of alert that gets shown (temporary banner or permanent pop-up), and set an app's notification to come with a sound, or not. There's also a toggle switch for showing this app's alerts in the macOS Notification Center, which appears when you click the time and date (top right).

There are also settings for notification previews and notification grouping for each individual app. The idea is that you can give your most important programs plenty of prominence, while keeping alerts from more minor apps hidden away in the background (or turned off altogether). If you set notifications as Alerts, they'll stay in the top right corner of the display until you dismiss them.

Focus modes

When you've got your individual app notification settings configured the way you want them, you can use Focus modes to override these settings. When it comes to macOS, this is most likely going to involve the traditional Do Not Disturb mode, which will block out any alerts for a set period of time.

Switch from Notifications to Focus in System Settings on macOS to see the modes available: You can make use of these preset ones, or click Add Focus to create your own. There's also a Share across devices toggle switch just underneath the Focus modes list, which you can turn off if you don't want all your iPhone modes showing up on macOS as well (and vice versa).

Choosing a Focus mode on a Mac. Credit: Lifehacker

The settings screen for each mode comes with specific settings for which notifications are allowed to show up. Click Allowed People to pick contacts who can trigger notifications when the mode is enabled, and Allowed Apps to do the same for programs. There's also an Intelligent Breakthrough and Silencing toggle switch you can enable to give macOS permission to show notifications it thinks are important.

Easy access to your modes is provided via the Control Center on the menu bar, in the top-right corner of the screen (the icon that looks like two toggle switches), as well as from the System Settings panel. Click this icon, then Focus, and you can pick from your list of modes or head to the Focus Settings screen again.

Syncing with iPhones and iPads

Thanks to Apple's suite of Continuity features, you can sync call and message notifications across iPhones, iPads, and Macs, if they're all signed into the same Apple account. This is handy if you want to be able to pick up iPhone calls on your laptop, but not so helpful if you're trying to get some work done on macOS without interruption.

You've got a few options for extricating yourself from this—including just turning off Messages and FaceTime notifications on macOS. On your iPhone, open Settings then choose Cellular, and you get a Calls on Other Devices menu, where you can turn the toggle switches off for any Macs you've got connected. There's a similar setting for text messages, which you can find from iOS Settings by tapping Apps > Messages > Text Message Forwarding.

Turning off Mac access to iPhone calls. Credit: Lifehacker

That will stop cellular phone calls, and SMS/RCS messages from showing up on your Mac—though because of the way Apple Continuity works, you're still going to see FaceTime calls and iMessage updates on macOS. To change this, you need to head into FaceTime > Settings and Messages > Settings on your Mac.

In both cases, you get the option to disable connections via your cell number, or to sign out of your Apple account completely, for these specific apps. You can pick and choose the options you want, depending on how much connectivity you want on your Mac (including the ability to send messages and initiate calls from the desktop).

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