If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, you don’t always want to be alerted to or bothered by phone calls, texts, and any other types of notifications. Maybe you’re in a public place where you can’t take calls or messages, or perhaps you simply need some quiet time. The good news is that you can disable such notifications for your mobile device. Here’s how.
iPhone and iPad
The quickest and simplest way to disable notifications on your iOS device is through the “Do Not Disturb” option, which prevents phone calls, text messages, alerts, and other notifications from popping up on your screen, making a noise, or vibrating your device. Phone calls and text messages still arrive, you just won’t see or hear any notification when they do.
You can quickly turn on the “Do Not Disturb option” through the Control Center on your device. To activate this on an iPhone X or later or an iPad with iOS 12 or later, swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen. To activate it on an older device or one not yet updated to iOS 12, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
At the Control Center panel, tap the icon that looks like a half moon. A brief message flashes: “Do Not Disturb: On.” Tap anywhere on the home screen to make the Control Center vanish. You’ll then see the half-moon icon in the upper-right corner.
You can also enable Do Not Disturb by going to Settings > Do Not Disturb. Turn on the switch for Do Not Disturb. The option will remain on until you turn it off, either from the Settings screen or from Control Center. But you can dive further to better control how and when Do Not Disturb works.
Customize Do Not Disturb and Call Notifications
To get more specific with Do Not Disturb, first turn it off if it’s enabled. Turn on the Scheduled button. Here you can schedule a specific timeframe during which Do Not Disturb is activated.
For example, if you don’t want to hear notifications while you’re asleep, you can set the “From” time for whenever you go to bed and the “To” time to when you expect to wake up. You can also turn on the switch for Bedtime, which dims the lock screen and silences calls and notifications. Do Not Disturb will automatically take effect every day or night unless you turn off the Scheduled button.
Next, you’ll notice a section for Silence. Here, you can opt to always silence incoming calls and notifications, meaning whether the iPhone is locked or unlocked, or only when the phone is locked. To choose the latter option, tap the entry for “While iPhone is locked.”
Maybe you want to disable notifications for most calls but allow them from certain people or under certain circumstances, for instance from a family member or in the event of a possible emergency. You start by simply enabling Do Not Disturb or turning on the Scheduled button as explained above.
Then tap the setting for “Allow Calls From.” Here you choose from Everyone, No One, Favorites, or All Contacts. Selecting Favorites or All Contacts typically makes the most sense as it will allow calls only from people you know, preventing a stranger from calling you during your Do Not Disturb period.
Back at the Do Not Disturb screen, you can also turn on the option to allow Repeated Calls based on the assumption that someone who needs to reach you in the event of an emergency might try calling several times in a row.
Allow Specific Contacts to Call or Text You
Instead of allowing your favorites or all contacts to reach you when Do Not Disturb is enabled, you can designate only specific people who can get through. To do this, you need to enable a feature called Emergency Bypass for those specific people.
Open the Contacts app. Open the contact for whom you want to enable this feature and tap Edit. Tap the setting for Ringtone and then turn on the switch for Emergency Bypass. Tap Done and then Done again. You can enable this option for as many people as you wish.
You also have some control over using Do Not Disturb from the Control Center. Open the Control Center and press down on the Do Not Disturb icon. Depending on where you are and what you’re doing, a few options are available to determine how long Do Not Disturb will last, such as “For 1 hour,” “Until this evening,” or “Until I leave this location.” You can also tap the option for Schedule to return to the Settings screen for Do Not Disturb.
App-Specific Notifications
You can turn off or otherwise control notifications for specific apps and adjust how they appear on your device. Go to Settings > Notifications. There, you’ll find a list of installed apps that support notifications.
Let’s say you want to customize alerts about Facebook activity. Tap Facebook and turn on “Allow Notifications” if it’s not already activated. Below it, you can choose where and how the alerts will appear: Lock Screen, Notification Center, and/or Banners.
You can select a Banner Style. You can also turn on the Sounds switch to hear the notification and the Badges switch to display a number on the app’s icon whenever a notification is available.
Most apps also require you to go into the app itself and customize the types of alerts you’ll receive. For Facebook, open its app and tap the Hamburger icon. Go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Settings to mute push notifications and choose which notifications to receive.
Apple Watch
Notifications on an Apple Watch are less noisy than they are on an iPhone or iPad. However, you can still prevent them from appearing, especially if you’re in a public place where you don’t want to bother other people. Your Apple Watch’s Do Not Disturb mode mimics the settings from your iPhone, so enabling it on your iPhone automatically enables it on your watch.
On your iPhone, open the Watch app. Swipe down to the General setting, and tap Do Not Disturb. Make sure the option to Mirror iPhone is turned on. The fine print below this option indicates that your watch takes on the same Do Not Disturb settings that you enabled on your phone. Here, you can also enable Workout Do Not Disturb to silence phone calls and other notifications when you’re working out.
You can enable Do Not Disturb from your Apple Watch, which also enables it on your iPhone or iPad. At the clock face, swipe up to display the Control Center. Then tap the half-moon icon to turn on Do Not Disturb.
How to Disable Notifications While Driving
Apple has a special version of Do Not Disturb that is meant to be used specifically for when you are driving. Here is how to turn on Do Not Disturb While Driving on your iPhone.