How to Turn on Do Not Disturb on Your Mac

How to Turn on Do Not Disturb on Your Mac

While notifications are a handy feature of macOS, there are times when you just don’t want to have your concentration broken. Like when you’re writing the final page of that big term paper, or when you’re watching the latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Here’s a quick and easy way to turn on “Do Not Disturb” on your Mac.

How to Turn on Do Not Disturb on Your Mac

How to Turn on Do Not Disturb in macOS

If you simply want to quickly turn off notifications while you work, just hold down the Option key on your keyboard and click on the Notifications icon in the upper right-hand corner of your Mac’s Desktop. The icon you just Option-clicked will turn gray, indicating Notifications have been muted.

If you’d like to double-check that notifications have been turned off, you can simply click on the Notifications icon, and then two-finger swipe down on your Mac’s trackpad, and you’ll see that that Do Not Disturb is turned on as seen below. (You can also turn on Do Not Disturb by clicking the toggle switch seen in the screenshot below.)

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You can also set Do Not Disturb to turn on automatically, and adjust the settings on who to allow calls from, as well as other fine tuning from your macOS System Preferences.

Simply click the Apple icon in the upper left-hand corner of your Macs Desktop and then click “System Preferences…” from the menu that appears. In the System Preferences window, click the “Notifications” icon.

<a href="http://chrishauk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/macOS_Do_not_Disturb_2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1537 size-full" src="http://chrishauk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/macOS_Do_not_Disturb_2.jpg" alt="" width="462" height="225" /></a>

In the Notifications Settings page, you can set a timeframe for notifications to be automatically turned off, set Do Not Disturb to turn on automatically when the display is sleeping, or when mirroring to TVs and Projectors. You can also allow calls from everyone, or allow repeated calls to go through.

<a href="http://chrishauk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/macOS_Do_not_Disturb_2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1537 size-full" src="http://chrishauk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/macOS_Do_not_Disturb_2.jpg" alt="" width="462" height="225" /></a>

For more tips and tricks on how to make better use of your Mac, iOS device, Apple Watch, or Apple TV, be sure to visit the “How To” section of our website.

(A tip of the hat to AppleInsider for the original tip.)

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