Mac notifications pile up fast — Slack pings, calendar alerts, browser pop-ups, App Store badges. The good news: macOS gives you three levels of control. You can silence everything for an hour, mute one noisy app forever, or build Focus modes that switch on automatically when you work. This guide covers all of it, step by step, on macOS Sonoma, Sequoia, and newer.
The 10-second fix: turn on Do Not Disturb
When you just need silence right now:
- Click the Control Center icon in the menu bar (two toggle switches, top-right).
- Click Focus.
- Click Do Not Disturb.
Every banner and sound stops instantly. Click it again to turn it back off, or pick a duration — For 1 hour or Until this evening — so it shuts itself off and you never forget it is on. Notifications still collect quietly in Notification Center (click the clock in the menu bar to see them), so you miss nothing; you just stop being interrupted.
Turn off notifications for one app permanently
Most people do not want total silence — they want one or two chatty apps to stop. Here is the per-app switch:
- Open System Settings (Apple menu → System Settings).
- Click Notifications in the sidebar.
- Select the app in the list.
- Toggle Allow notifications off.
That app never interrupts you again — no banner, no sound, no badge. If turning it off completely feels too drastic, leave notifications on but fine-tune instead: switch the alert style from Alerts (stays on screen until dismissed) to Banners (slides away after a few seconds), or turn off just Play sound for notifications and Badge application icon so the app stays visible but silent.
Stop notification sounds but keep the banners
If the ding is the problem, not the banner: in System Settings → Notifications, pick the app and toggle off Play sound for notification. Do this for Messages and Mail and your Mac gets dramatically quieter while you still see what arrived. There is no single master mute-all-sounds switch, so repeat it for each loud app — it takes about a minute.
Turn off website notifications in Safari and Chrome
Browser pop-ups asking to send notifications — and the spammy alerts from sites you accidentally allowed — are handled inside the browser, not in System Settings.
Safari: Safari menu → Settings → Websites → Notifications. Set any site listed to Deny, and untick Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications at the bottom so no site ever asks again.
Chrome: click the three-dot menu → Settings → Privacy and security → Site settings → Notifications. Choose Don’t allow sites to send notifications, or remove individual sites under the Allowed list.
One of the most common “my Mac keeps showing ads” complaints is actually a website that was granted notification permission — this menu is where you kill it.
Schedule Do Not Disturb automatically
Instead of remembering to toggle it, let your Mac do it:
- System Settings → Focus.
- Click Do Not Disturb.
- Under Set a schedule, click Add Schedule.
- Pick a time window (say 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM on weekdays), a location, or an app that triggers it.
Your Mac now goes quiet during deep-work hours or the moment you open a specific app, and reopens the floodgates when the window ends.
Focus modes: different silence for work and personal time
Do Not Disturb is all-or-nothing. Focus modes are smarter — each one is a filter that lets chosen people and apps through while blocking the rest. In System Settings → Focus you can create a Work Focus that allows Slack, Calendar, and your manager, and a Personal Focus that allows Messages from family and nothing else.
Two details worth knowing:
- Share Across Devices (a toggle at the bottom of the Focus settings) syncs your Focus state to your iPhone and iPad signed into the same Apple ID — turn on Work Focus on the Mac and your phone goes quiet too. Turn the toggle off if you would rather they stay independent.
- Allowed people can still ring through. If someone keeps reaching you in Do Not Disturb, open that Focus, check the Allowed People list, and remove them — or leave them there on purpose so true emergencies get through.
Notifications during presentations and screen sharing
macOS automatically silences notifications while you are mirroring your display or sharing your screen in most apps, so a private message does not appear mid-presentation. You can see this as the automatic “Sharing” Focus. If you want a stronger guarantee before a big call, manually flip on Do Not Disturb first — belt and suspenders.
Clean out Notification Center
Old notifications stack up in Notification Center (click the date and time in the menu bar). Hover over a group and click the X to clear it, or the small arrow to expand and clear individual items. While you are in there, scroll down and turn off widgets you never use — fewer things competing for your attention.
FAQ
Why do calls still come through when Do Not Disturb is on?
Someone (or an app) is on the Allowed list for that Focus, or you enabled the option that lets repeated calls through — a second call from the same person within three minutes bypasses Do Not Disturb by design. Both settings live in System Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb.
How do I silence notifications for just one hour?
Control Center → Focus → hover over Do Not Disturb and choose For 1 hour. It switches itself off afterward.
Do Focus modes sync between my Mac and iPhone?
Yes, when Share Across Devices is on in Focus settings and both devices use the same Apple ID. Turning on a Focus anywhere turns it on everywhere. Disable the toggle if you want the Mac handled separately.
How do I stop macOS update reminders?
In System Settings → Notifications, scroll down and you can quiet app-level reminders, but the red badge on System Settings itself clears only when you install the update or hide it: it is Apple’s way of nudging you toward security patches, and on an older Mac those patches matter — see our guide to why a MacBook slows down and how to fix it before assuming an update is the problem.
I just got this Mac — should I set up notifications first?
Do the accounts and privacy basics first, then tame notifications once your apps are installed. Our used MacBook setup checklist walks the whole first hour in order, and if you are coming from a PC, the Windows-to-Mac switching guide maps every setting to where Windows kept it.