Reclaim your attention: turning off macOS notifications you do not need

The default notification settings on a new Mac are wrong for almost everyone. Apple sets every app to “show notifications” by default, because the alternative would be an empty Notification Center on day one and a customer who thought their Mac was broken. The cost of this default is that within six months your Mac is interrupting you forty times a day for things you do not need.

This is a practical post about fixing that. It takes about fifteen minutes the first time. After that you will only need to revisit it when you install a new app.

The mental rule

The hardest part of this exercise is not finding the settings. The settings are easy. The hard part is having a clear rule for what is allowed to interrupt you.

The rule that works for most knowledge workers is this: an app may interrupt you in real time only if you would want a phone call about the same event. Anything else can wait until you decide to look.

That rule eliminates roughly 90% of notifications. Slack messages from a public channel? You would not want a phone call about that. Email from a marketing list? Definitely not. A Calendar reminder about a meeting in five minutes? Yes, that is phone-call worthy. A todo reminder for a task you set yourself? Probably yes. A new follower on a social app? No.

You will tune the rule to your own life. Some people want a notification when their iPhone backup completes. Some people want one when their build finishes. Most people do not need a notification when a podcast they subscribe to publishes a new episode. The point is to have a principle and apply it consistently, not to argue every notification individually.

Where the settings actually live

System Settings is the home for everything notification-related on macOS. The relevant pages:

System Settings > Notifications is the master list of every app that has ever asked to send you notifications. For each app, you can choose Allow Notifications on or off, and if on, the style (None, Banners, Alerts), whether they appear on the lock screen, in Notification Center, as a badge on the app icon, and whether they make sound.

System Settings > Notifications > Show Previews controls whether the contents of a notification appear when your Mac is locked. The choices are Always, When Unlocked, and Never. “When Unlocked” is the right setting for most people: the message contents are private when your Mac is on the lock screen but visible when you are at it.

System Settings > Focus lets you create custom modes that filter notifications. Personal Focus, Work Focus, Sleep Focus. Each Focus mode has its own list of apps and people allowed to break through.

System Settings > Notifications > Allow notifications when the screen is locked is a global override. Off is more private, on is more convenient. Pick one.

A pass through every app

The fastest way to do this is to open System Settings to Notifications and scroll the list. For each app, ask the rule: would I want a phone call about what this app sends me? If no, turn it off entirely. If yes for some events but not others, look in the app’s own settings for finer control.

A typical pass goes like this:

• Mail. Most people: off entirely. Notifications are how Mail steals your attention all day. If you absolutely need them, turn off sound and badges and rely on banners, and check Mail on your own schedule the rest of the time. Some people use VIPs to allow notifications only from specific people.
• Slack and other chat. App-side settings, not OS-side. Use Do Not Disturb in Slack itself for working hours, and disable channel-level notifications for everything that does not directly involve you.
• Calendar. Almost always on. Meeting reminders are the textbook case for a notification.
• Reminders. On if you use it. Off if you use a different todo app.
• Music, Podcasts, TV, News. Off. These are pull experiences, not push.
• Photos. Off unless you use Shared Albums actively.
• App Store. Off. Update notifications are not time-sensitive.
• Browsers. Off, then turn web push off entirely from inside the browser preferences. The browser will be much quieter.
• Games. Off, every single one.
• Smart home apps. App-side. Most have their own notification preferences that are more granular than what the OS gives you.

After the pass, your notifications list should be short. For most people it is between five and ten apps total. Calendar. Messages. Maybe one or two work apps. Maybe Reminders or another todo app. That is it.

Focus modes are a force multiplier

Focus modes let you have different notification rules for different times. The default Focus modes (Do Not Disturb, Work, Personal, Sleep) cover the common cases, but the real power is creating your own.

A useful pattern: a “Deep Work” Focus that allows only Calendar reminders and nothing else. Schedule it on a recurring basis from 9 AM to 11 AM, or trigger it from the Control Center with one click. For two hours a day, your Mac is silent except for the things that would actually disrupt your day if missed.

Another pattern: a “Reading” Focus that silences everything including chat. Useful for evenings, weekend mornings, or any time you want to commit to a long-form task without being pulled out.

The key thing about Focus modes is they sync across your Apple devices if you have iCloud turned on. Setting Deep Work on your Mac silences your iPhone too. The interruption budget is unified across the devices that share your attention.

Where todo apps fit

A todo app sends you two kinds of notifications: ones you set yourself by adding a due time to a task, and ones the app generates on its own (sync errors, “you have not opened this app in a week,” and so on).

The first kind is the entire point of the app. You wrote down “Email Sam at 2:30 PM” and you want a notification at 2:30 PM. Without it, the task is just a note on a list and the app is failing at its main job.

The second kind is mostly noise. A good todo app does not send “you have not opened this app in a week” notifications, because the app is supposed to be a tool that quietly tracks what you asked it to track, not a habit-formation product trying to manufacture engagement.

If you find your todo app sending notifications you did not ask for, that is a signal to either turn off all notifications from that app and rely on the visible list, or pick a different app.

For TodoBar specifically, the only notifications come from due times you attached to tasks yourself. There are no “we miss you” notifications. There are no “your streak is at risk” notifications. There is no manufactured engagement. We wrote about why in the case for tiny single-purpose apps.

What to do once

Block out fifteen minutes. Open System Settings. Walk the list. Apply the rule. Do not skip apps because “I’ll figure that one out later.” Apply the rule.

When you are done, your Mac will be quieter than you remember it being. That quiet is the actual feature you have been paying for all along.