On your computer screen, notifications appear to inform you of critical security alerts, messages from friends, or even tweets. However, if you allow alerts from all of your apps, the onslaught of new data will overwhelm and annoy you at inconvenient moments.
That’s why certain operating systems, such as Windows and macOS, have built-in controls for limiting the number of messages that appear on your computer. Here’s how to monitor which applications will view warnings, set time limits for interruptions, and clean up your notification list.
In this post, we will teach you how to have the desired control over all of the popup messages your system is showing you. You can manage and even ignore the ones which may be irrelevant to you.
On Windows system
Microsoft’s Windows updates appear in the Action Center, a panel on the right side of the computer. Tap the Action Center button, a tiny dialog-box indicator in the lower right-hand corner, to bring up all of your messages in one location. Pop-up boxes in the lower right-hand corner appear as warnings for finished virus scans or new emails arrive. By pressing the ‘Dismiss X’ button in the top-right corner, you can dismiss each one individually. Alternatively, you can clear the whole list by tapping Clear all alerts.
You will monitor which warnings occur and when they appear in addition to ignoring them. Open the Start menu, go to Settings, and select System, then Notifications and Activities. There will be a slew of toggle switches emerge. This allows you to choose whether or not messages can appear on the lock screen, as well as activate or disable specific alerts.
A complete list of applications and device utilities, such as volume changes, can be seen further down the screen. To stop it from sending messages, turn off the toggle switches next to each one. As a last resort, switching off the Get alerts from apps and other senders click to disable all notifications. However, rather than disable them, we suggest that you switch off only the distracting ones.
You can also reduce the amount of distraction for certain applications without completely turning off alerts. To get more precise access, press the app’s name rather than the toggle switch. You can choose whether or not they can have a sound and how many of them can appear in the Action Center at once on the next page.
On MacOS systems
Apple’s macOS provides a similar set of notification options, but they are named differently and function somewhat differently. For example, instead of appearing in the Action Center, warnings occur in the Notification Center. Tap the Notification Center button in the top right-hand corner of your screen to make it visible. You can swap between Notifications, where you can see your alerts, and Today, where you can see a list of widgets and other stuff when you open it.
A pop-up window occurs in the top right corner of the screen when a new message is sent. You should use these boxes to receive incoming calls or install a pending app upgrade and they also allow you to take action. Alternatively, press the X button to the right of the message to dismiss it. To dismiss all alerts at once, click the X icon at the very top of the screen.
To change the notification preferences, go to the Notification Center panel’s bottom and press the Configuration button, or go to the Apple menu and pick System Preferences, then Notifications. You’ll see a list of all the apps that want to show updates here. To adjust the notification settings for a specific app, click either of them.