Push notifications have the undeniable importance of alerting you to messages and updates. As useful as they are, a constant stream of notifications from applications and web browsers can easily distract you from the task at hand and ultimately affect your productivity. Therefore, it is increasingly important that we handle those notifications properly.
Fortunately, Windows 11 offers a few settings that you can modify to optimize your notification experience. In this article, we’ll show you how to enable, disable, and manage notifications in Windows 11 to help you take control of things. Then let’s get started.
Table of Contents
How to enable or disable notifications in Windows 11
First, let’s see how you can quickly enable or disable notifications on your Windows 11 PC using the redesigned Settings app.
Step 1: Open the Start menu and click the Settings icon to launch the Settings app. Alternatively, you can also press Windows Key + I to quickly start setup.
Step 2: In the Settings app, navigate to the System tab on your left and click on the Notifications option on your right.
Step 3: Here, you can disable the switch next to Notifications to completely disable notifications on your Windows 11.
Similarly, you can toggle the switch again to allow apps to send notifications on your PC.
How to manage notifications for specific applications
If you have disabled all notifications in Windows 11 to avoid annoyance, you might miss out on some important reminders and emails. To ensure that you always receive alerts and messages from important applications, Windows 11 also allows you to manage notifications by application. Keep reading to learn.
Step 1: Press Windows key + I to launch Settings application on your PC. Switch to the System tab and go to Notification Settings.
Step 2: Scroll down to the ‘Notifications from apps and other senders’ section. Here you will find a list of applications and senders that can send you notifications. Toggle the corresponding switches next to these apps to enable or disable notifications for them.
Alternative method
In addition to the above method, you can also disable notifications for specific apps from the Notification Center, as long as you already have a notification from that app. That’s how.
Step 1: Open the notification center by clicking on the date and time icon in the lower right corner.
Alternatively, you can also press Windows Key + N to open the Notification Center in Windows 11.
Step 2: Find a notification for the app you want to turn off notification for. Click on the three-dot menu icon and choose ‘Disable all notifications for [AppName].
If you’ve decided to enable notifications for a specific app, there are some additional preferences you can configure to further optimize your notification experience in Windows 11.
Enable or disable the notification banner
Open the Settings app and navigate to the notification settings. Click on the app to view additional notification settings. Now use the checkboxes to specify whether the application should display a notification banner. Furthermore, you can also mute the notification sound from here.
Set notification priority
Even after filtering annoying notifications from certain apps, there’s a good chance that an important notification will get buried deep in the notification stack. To make sure you don’t miss an important alert, you can assign different priorities for notifications by following the steps below.
Step 1: Open the notification settings and click on the app to set its priority.
Step 2: Under “Notification priority in notification center”, choose from Top, High and Normal options to set your preference.
Once set up, notifications from the apps you are interested in will always stay at the top regardless of their time.
Bonus: try Focus Assist on Windows 11
Focus Assist is a handy Windows utility that helps you focus on the task by silencing irrelevant notifications. It does this by filtering out notifications from particular apps while ensuring that apps and people on your priority list can always communicate with you.
Here’s how you can set up and use Focus support in Windows 11.
Step 1: Click the search icon on the taskbar, type focus assist, and press Enter.
Step 2: Here, you can enable Focus Assist by choosing ‘Priority only’ or ‘Alarms only’ option.
Setting it to ‘Priority only’ will allow apps and contacts on the priority list to send notifications. You can add exceptions for these applications and contacts by customizing the priority list.
Setting it to ‘Alarms only’ will silence all notifications except Alarms.
Additionally, you can also check the checkbox below to see a summary of missed notifications at the end of your focus session.
After completing the setup, you can quickly enable Focus support by visiting the Action Center in Windows 11.
The focus assistant can be a real productivity booster while you work. You can set it to activate automatically during your work hours and see a summary of all your missed notifications at the end.
Taking control
Once you get used to the new Windows 11 Settings app and familiarize yourself with the options above, you can easily control all your notifications. And if you’re familiar with Focus support in Windows 10, it probably won’t take long.
