Mastering Mac and iPhone Notifications: A Guide to Silence and Focus

Your Mac and iPhone constantly buzz with notifications, sometimes disrupting your workflow. This guide provides a comprehensive approach to managing notification sounds and alerts on both devices, helping you regain focus and control.

Need instant notification control? Serenity from Setapp offers a simple menu bar toggle to mute any app's notifications.

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Silencing Mac Notifications

While macOS offers built-in notification controls, they can be cumbersome. Serenity provides a streamlined solution: simply toggle off an app in its menu bar to mute its sounds while retaining visual notifications. Remember to enable "Launch at login" for convenient access.

Mac's Built-in Notification Controls:

For more granular control, use these steps to disable app notifications entirely:

1. Access System Settings > Notifications.
2. Locate the target app under Application Notifications.
3. Toggle off Allow notifications.

Repeat for each app requiring silencing.

Managing Mac Notification Sounds:

Muting All Notifications: macOS's Focus feature provides a quick mute for all sounds and notifications (including banners). Access it via the moon icon in the menu bar, System Settings > Focus, or the F6 key (may vary). Do Not Disturb mode activates automatically.

Temporarily Muting Individual Apps: For short-term silencing, expand a notification, click the ellipses (…), and select "Mute for 1 hour" or "Mute for today."

Silencing App Sounds Only: To keep visual notifications but eliminate sounds:

1. Go to System Settings > Notifications.
2. Locate the app and disable Play sound for notifications.

Note: You can also customize notification display (None, Banner, Alert) within these settings.

Customizing Alert Sounds: System alert sounds (for errors, prompts) are adjusted in System Settings > Sound, selecting a new Alert sound from the dropdown.

App-Specific Notification Sounds: Unfortunately, changing individual app notification sounds requires configuring each app separately (e.g., Messages > Settings > Receive Message Sound).

iPhone and iPad Notification Management:

Silencing All Notifications: Use Control Center (swipe up from the bottom) to access Focus > Do Not Disturb, selecting a duration or using the crescent moon icon for immediate silencing.

Muting Specific Apps:

1. Open Settings > Notifications.
2. Select the app, go to Sounds, and choose None or toggle off the switch.

Temporary muting is also available via Notification Center: swipe right on a notification, tap Options, and select a duration.

Muting Specific Contacts: Use either Contacts (set Text Tone to None for a contact) or Focus mode (temporarily mute notifications from selected contacts within a Focus profile).

Location-Based Muting: Control Center's Focus settings allow silencing notifications until you leave a specific location.

Scheduled Notification Summaries: iOS 15 and later allow batching notifications at scheduled times (Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary).

Website Notification Management:

Blocking Website Notifications with AdLock: AdLock (from Setapp) efficiently blocks unwanted website notifications, ads, and spam.

Manually Blocking Website Notifications: For Safari: Safari > Settings > Websites > Notifications. For Chrome: Chrome > Settings > Privacy and Security > Site Settings > Notifications.

Reclaim your peace and quiet! With these strategies, you can effectively manage notifications on your iPhone and Mac, optimizing your focus and productivity. Try Serenity and AdLock free via Setapp's 7-day trial.

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