Notifications are a great way to keep up to date with events as they happen, but you’ll need to use them selectively.
It’s important to know when a colleague has messaged or someone wants to start a video call, but the latest celebrity news or an anti-virus software deal will do more harm to your productivity than good.
All notifications are inherently disruptive, but it’s especially annoying when you receive something completely irrelevant. It happens all too often, whether you’re using a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
But on devices running Windows 11, there are plenty of ways to control the flood of notifications that come your way. Here are five key ways to do that.
Decide which apps can send notifications
This is the most obvious, but also the most important. Installing any app means you technically consent to it sending you notifications, so you’ll need to manually turn them off.
- Head to Settings > System > Notifications and scroll down to “Notifications from apps and other senders”
- Go through the list and turn off the toggle next to the ones you don’t want. Any changes you make here will be saved immediately
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
- For finer control, click the right arrow next to any app. Here you can choose how you want notifications to be displayed, what their priority is and whether you want to play a sound
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
Check notifications in the browser
When visiting certain sites, you may be asked if you want to receive notifications. If you click “Allow”, these can be sent to your desktop at any time.
You can turn off notifications for your web browser of choice in settings, but that’s an all-or-nothing approach. To control which websites can send notifications, you will need to access your web browser settings instead.
On Google Chrome:
- Click on the three dots at the top right and select “Settings”
- Head to Privacy and Security > Site Settings > Notifications
- Under “Custom Behaviors”, see which sites are “Allowed to Send Notifications”
- For those you want to stop, click on the three dots and choose “Remove” (to deactivate them) or “Block” (to prevent them from asking again)
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
On Microsoft Edge:
- Click on the three dots at the top right and select “Settings”
- Head to “Cookies and Site Permissions”, then scroll down and select “Notifications”
- As with Chrome, click the three dots next to any item in the “Allow” list you want to remove, then choose “Remove” or “Block”.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
If you are using another web browser, the process is similar.
Set a Do Not Disturb Schedule
In Windows 11, Do Not Disturb blocks all incoming notifications except those you set as “priority”.
To turn it on, go to Settings > System > Notifications and click the toggle next to “Do Not Disturb”.
From here, you can also set a schedule for when Do Not Disturb is active. The default is 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., but this can be customized to your liking.
There are also four other times when Do Not Disturb is automatically active. Uncheck the box next to any of these items to disable them:
- When duplicating your display (priority notification banners are also hidden)
- When you play a game
- When using an app in fullscreen mode (priority notification banners are also hidden
- For the first hour after a Windows feature update
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
Set Priority Notifications
In the same settings section, you will also see the option to specify which notifications are given priority. Incoming calls and reminders are selected by default, but you can uncheck the box to disable them.
You will also see a list of priority apps. Click on the three dots next to one of them and choose “Remove” so that they are no longer a priority, or “Add apps” to add new ones to the list.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
Use tune-ups regularly
If you need to do something specific, you definitely don’t want to be interrupted by notifications. Windows 11’s Focus tool can be configured to turn on Do Not Disturb for a specific amount of time, as well as turn off badges and flash on taskbar apps.
Head to Settings > System > Focus to customize any of these or the countdown timer that will appear in the Clock app.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
You can start a session directly from Settings, but it’s easier through the Clock app. Debug Sessions is the screen you will be presented with as soon as you open it.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
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