Tip: This is how you manage notifications on your Mac

Are you crazy about the banners that keep appearing on your screen with unnecessary notifications? Fortunately, you can turn off notifications for apps you don’t want to be bothered by. Here’s how to manage MacBook notifications.

Manage MacBook notifications

Notifications on your Mac can be very useful. For example, a reminder of an appointment or an e-mail can help you, but you often also receive notifications from apps that are not that important at all. Especially when you are busy it is quite annoying.

Fortunately, there is a solution for this: you can (temporarily) pause your notifications. It is also possible to set for which apps you receive notifications and for which not. That’s how you do that.

Pause notifications

1. Click on the list icon at the top right of your menu bar;
2. A Scroll up will now appear in the ‘Notification’ tab;
3. To pause notifications, turn on the switch behind ‘Do Not Disturb’.

All notifications are now turned off until midnight, or until you turn off your MacBook. You can still see the notifications in Notifications, but you will no longer receive pop-up notifications.

Pause notifications for a specified amount of time

1. Go to ‘System Preferences’ via the Apple menu;
2. Click on ‘Notifications’;
3. Click on ‘Do Not Disturb’ at the top and set the times between which you do not want to receive notifications.

You can also choose to disable notifications when, for example, you share the screen on a TV, when the screen is off or when your MacBook is locked.

Turn off notifications for certain apps

Do you only want to manage notifications for certain MacBook or Mac apps? That is also possible. You largely follow the same steps as above, but with a twist.

1. Go to ‘System Preferences’ via the Apple menu;
2. Click on ‘Notifications’;
3. In the window that then appears, click on an app for which you want to disable the notifications;
4. Turn off the switch to stop receiving any notifications.

Here you can also set per app what kind of notifications you do want to receive, and where. For example, you can choose whether you want to see notifications from this app when your screen is locked, whether you want strips or notifications, and so on.

More MacBook tips

Do you want to get everything out of your MacBook? On iPhone you regularly read useful MacBook tips. For example, we explain what you can do to free up disk space or how you can best clean your MacBook. Does your MacBook often overheat? We explain what you can do about it.