If you frequently receive notifications on your Apple Watch, you probably have turned off the sound. You will only feel vibrations and the sounds will not be played.
If you have forgotten to silence your Apple Watch, it is possible to silence received notifications or telephone calls for the time being using your palm. Holding still is done via a special option and trick that is easy to activate.
Silence Apple Watch notifications with palm of hand, activate
- Open Settings on your Apple Watch
- Navigate to ‘Gestures’
- Enable the ‘Cover to hold still’ option
Of course, you can also enable this via the Apple Watch app on your iPhone ▸ My Watch ▸ Gestures ▸ Enable the ‘Cover to freeze’ option.
Silence notifications via trick
As soon as you receive a notification or phone call on your Apple Watch, you can automatically silence and ignore it by placing your hand on the Apple Watch. Cover the screen and wait a few moments. You will feel a vibration indicating that the silent mode has been activated and the call or notification will be ignored.
Silence your Apple Watch via the control panel
Of course, you can also quickly silence the Apple Watch via the control panel. Press the side button on your Apple Watch and tap the bell icon. This changes to a red button with a crossed-out bell, which indicates that the Apple Watch is on silent and no sounds are being played. The above trick is mainly intended when you have forgotten to silence your Watch and are overwhelmed by a sound.
Quick wrist movement gesture
Since watchOS 26, it has been possible to handle notifications on the Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple Watch SE 3rd generation, Apple Watch Series 9 or newer even more easily with a quick movement of your wrist. When you lift your wrist to view a notification but don’t want to respond yet, you can quickly move your wrist back and forth to dismiss the notification.
With this wrist swipe you can dismiss notifications and incoming calls, turn off timers and alarms, close apps and return to the watch face. The wrist movement is analyzed using the accelerometer and gyroscope, in combination with a machine learning model. This action has the same effect as covering the screen with your palm, but has the advantage of not requiring an extra hand.