Master notifications on Mac

Take back control of the notifications you receive

- DAVID CROOKES

NOTIFICATIONS ARE BOTH a blessing and a curse. They can be useful in reminding you of events and letting you know what’s going on, but you can receive so many that they start to lose their impact and quickly become annoying. Rather than turn them off, however, it’s worth spending some time getting on top of them. You can turn off the notifications you don’t want, and manage and control those you do. You can even get Apple Intelligence to help you. There are some pre-emptive measures you can take, too. It’s easy to visit a website and accidentally accept notifications, for example, but it’s also easy to prevent this. Just launch Safari, go to Settings > Websites > Notifications, then turn off “Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications”. Creating a Focus (System Settings > Focus) can also let you customize notifications for set time periods. Put yourself back in control.

HOW TO Determine how your notifications appear

Get a glimpse

Go to Apple menu > System Settings > Notifications. Click the options next to Show previews, and decide whether or not notifications should display a summary (Always/When Unlocked) or just display the app’s name (Never).

Secure lock screen