Notifications can be a very important feature on our laptops, just as they are on our smartphones. They let us know when something needs our attention, and if you are easily distracted, this can help you stay on track. However, as we install more and more apps, notifications are constantly competing for our attention, and sometimes you just want to focus. Fortunately, you can customize your notification settings in a variety of ways on Windows 11, and we’re here to help.
In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at your options for customizing notifications on Windows 11. These can help you make notifications less intrusive and allow you to focus on what’s really important to you. With that establishment, let’s go straight into it.
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Customize general notification settings
Let’s start with the basics of notification settings. First, if you want to access notification settings on Windows 11, there are two ways to do that. The quickest way is to right-click on the date and time section in the corner of the taskbar, then choose Notification settings.
Alternatively, you can use the Start menu to open the Settings app, then choose Notices In the System Section (which opens by default).
Here, you are presented with an overview of your notification settings. You can disable alerts completely, or click on the first option, Noticesto expand the dropdown menu. This menu contains some additional options, such as turning off notification sounds. You can also choose whether you want notifications to appear on the lock screen, including a specific setting for reminders and incoming calls. Below that, there’s Focus Assist, the Windows equivalent of Do Not Disturb. We’ll look at that shortly.
You can also enable or disable notifications for each app. The apps shown here are only those that have sent you at least one notification, so the list may not show the apps you just installed. You can tap on each app to go to more specific settings for that app, but we’ll explore that later.
At the bottom of the page, you can also find settings for some notifications from the Windows system itself. For example, you can turn off suggestions for how to use certain features, or whether to see the Welcome experience in Windows after installing a new feature update. This welcome experience can inform you about what’s new in the update, so it can be useful, but it’s not for everyone.
focus help
Focusing is the equivalent of Do Not Disturb in Windows 11, and it can block almost all incoming notifications as long as it’s enabled. When you clock focus help On the page shown above, you can customize many settings related to this feature. For starters, you can choose to leave it on or use an extension priority or Warning Settings. Priority mode lets you choose specific notifications that can hack focus assist, while Alert mode lets you only get through the alarms.
There is also an option here to let you see notifications you missed while the focus was on. With this enabled, when focus assist is disabled, you’ll see a notification with a summary of everything you’ve missed.
Below these options, you have a section for auto rules, which are specific situations where the focus starts automatically. There are options to enable it during a specific time of the day, along with more special rules, such as when you’re repeating the view or while you’re running a full screen app. These can come in handy so you don’t get embarrassing notifications while viewing your screen, or if you don’t want to be interrupted while playing the game. Oddly enough, there’s also a rule to disable notifications for the first hour after installing a feature update, and it’s enabled by default.
If you click on any of these rules, you can choose whether to turn on focus assist in priority mode or alert mode, and you can also choose whether you want to be notified when focus assist is automatically enabled.
Customize your priority list
As mentioned above, one of the options that focus assist provides is called Priority, and this allows selected apps to continue sending notifications if you consider them important. If you click Customize the priority listIn addition to reminders, you can choose to allow VoIP calls to pass through. Then, of course, you can choose specific apps you want to add to your priority list, so that notifications from those apps are always shown. Some apps are added by default, but you can remove them or add some others.
There is also a section on this page to allow notifications from certain people to be hacked. However, this is based on the People app, which is basically unusable nowadays, and includes only Outlook contacts. It doesn’t even work with Microsoft Teams contacts, even though the app is built into Windows 11.
Customize notification settings for each app in Windows 11
Finally, let’s talk about notification settings for individual apps. As mentioned above, the notification settings page (Settings -> System -> Notices) Allows you to turn notifications on or off for each app. However, you can also click on the name of the app to see more detailed notification settings for that app.
for example. Let’s go to Microsoft Teams, since it’s built into Windows 11. When you open the notification settings for that app, you’ll see some options. First, you can choose if you want notification banners to appear — those are the little popups that appear in the lower right corner of your screen. You can also choose whether you want these notifications to appear in the Notification Center, which you can open by clicking the date and time on the taskbar (or pressing a button windows key and n on your keyboard).
Other options let you hide notification contents on the lock screen, so people can’t see your notifications without entering your password or PIN. You can also turn off notification sounds and choose the priority level for notifications from this app. Higher priority means that notifications will appear at the top of the notification shade, and if you receive multiple high priority notifications, you can also see up to three of them pop up on your screen at once, instead of just one for normal notifications.
Notification settings in Windows 11 version 22H2
So far we’ve talked about the notification settings in the original version of Windows 11, but you’re probably already running Windows 11 version 22H2. This is the first feature update for Windows 11, and it comes with some significant changes to the notification settings. In this version, if you go to the notification settings page (Settings -> System -> Notices), things look a little different, but most of the functionality is the same.
For starters, Focus help has been renamed Do Not Disturb, so it matches what you already know from other platforms. It’s also simplified, so it’s either on or off, and you can no longer choose between priority mode or alerts mode. Additionally, all of the Do Not Disturb settings are now available directly on the notifications page, without taking you to an entirely separate page.
It’s also worth noting that the page where you customize the priority list has been updated with a new design, and it also removes the useless people section we mentioned above.
to focus
Something new you will notice in the new Notices page is to focus Selection. This is where you can choose options related to focus sessions, a feature that was introduced with Windows 11 as part of the Clock app. On this page, you can start a focus session, choose how long it will last, and hide the taskbar notification badges and flash (when an app on the taskbar turns orange to get your attention).
When you start a focus session, it will enable the settings you choose on this page. You can learn more about the Watch app with our deep dive focus sessions if you’re interested.
And that’s all you need to know about how to customize notification settings on your Windows 11 PC. If you’re interested in learning more about Windows 11, we have some other guides for you. We have a general guide on how to use Windows 11 as a whole, which is a great starting point for new users.
