How to Silence Notifications on Mac and iPhone in 2026

To silence notifications on a Mac in one move, hold Option and click the date and time in the menu bar, which switches Do Not Disturb on. On iPhone, open Control Center, touch and hold Focus, then tap Do Not Disturb. With Focus shared across your devices, silencing one quiets the other too.

Silencing is different from switching notifications off for good. You want quiet for a call, a presentation, an afternoon of writing or a night's sleep, and you want everything back afterward without rebuilding your settings. This guide covers the quick switches on macOS 27 and the iPhone, how to mute a single app or chat for an hour, how to keep both devices in step, and why something still buzzes when you thought you'd silenced it.

Quick answer: the fastest way to silence each thing

Everything in the table is temporary or easy to undo. If an app has earned a permanent off switch, our guide to turning off notifications on Mac covers that, app by app.

How to silence all notifications on Mac

Do Not Disturb keeps a Mac quiet until you switch it back or the time you picked runs out. It's one of the built-in Focuses, and Apple's guide to turning a Focus on or off lists three ways to start it.

The one-click way: Option-click the clock

Hold Option and click the date and time, top right of your screen. Do Not Disturb turns on with no menu to get through; do it again to turn it off. This is the shortcut worth memorizing. I do it as the meeting link opens, before I've even seen who else has joined, because a banner sliding in during the first minute of a client call is the one that gets noticed.

From Control Center, with a time limit

1. Click Control Center in the menu bar.
2. Click anywhere in the Focus section.
3. Click Do Not Disturb. Its icon is highlighted and appears in the menu bar.
4. Optionally pick how long, such as For 1 hour, or Until the end of this event if you're in a meeting on your calendar, so it switches itself off when the event ends.

To turn it off, open Control Center and click the Focus again. The Until the end of this event option is the reason I use Control Center at all: it ties the quiet to my Calendar, so I can't forget to come back out of it.

With the Do Not Disturb key

Some Mac keyboards have a Do Not Disturb key in the row of function keys. Press it to switch Do Not Disturb on or off, per Apple. If your keyboard lacks one, the Option-click does the same job.

How to silence all notifications on iPhone

On iPhone, Do Not Disturb silences calls, alerts and notifications, and its icon shows in the status bar and on the Lock Screen while it's on, according to Apple's Do Not Disturb article. Control Center is the quickest way in.

1. Open Control Center: swipe down from the top-right corner on iPhone X and later, or up from the bottom edge on iPhone SE and iPhone 8 or earlier.
2. Touch and hold the Focus button, then tap Do Not Disturb.
3. To turn it off, tap the Do Not Disturb icon on the Focus button again. The button dims and reads Focus once it's off.

You can also ask Siri to turn Do Not Disturb on or off, which is handy when your hands are full. And since iOS 16, a Lock Screen wallpaper can be linked to a Focus: touch and hold the Lock Screen, swipe to a wallpaper that shows Do Not Disturb at the bottom and tap it, and the Focus comes on with it, per Apple.

Silent mode vs. Do Not Disturb on iPhone

Silent mode mutes the iPhone's rings and alert sounds, but notifications still arrive and the phone vibrates; Do Not Disturb silences the calls, alerts and notifications themselves. They answer different problems, and mixing them up is why a phone can be "silent" yet light up all through a meeting.

• Ring/Silent switch: on iPhones that have the switch on the side, the switch shows orange when the phone is in Silent mode, and it vibrates for calls and alerts instead of ringing, per Apple's guide to the iPhone's buttons.
• Action button: on iPhone 15 Pro models, iPhone 16 and later, and the iPhone 16e and 17e, the Action button replaces the switch. By default it turns Silent mode on or off, though you may have set it to something else.
• Alarms still sound: in Silent mode, alarms you set in the Clock app still go off, per the same Apple page. That's deliberate, and it's the reason Silent mode is safe to leave on overnight.

At a dinner I flip the phone to Silent and leave it face down. In a meeting where I'm on screen, I use Do Not Disturb instead, because a lit-up Lock Screen on the table is just as distracting as a buzz.

How to silence your Mac and iPhone at the same time

Turn on Share across devices in Focus settings and any Focus you switch on or off on your Mac does the same on the phone and any iPad, provided every device uses one Apple Account. Apple's Focus options guide says the setting is on by default.

1. On the Mac, click the Apple logo and pick System Settings.
2. Scroll the sidebar until you reach Focus, and click it.
3. Turn Share across devices on, or off if you want the two devices to stay independent.

Sharing is the easiest way to get real quiet, since the phone is usually the louder of the two. It has a catch. I once Option-clicked the Mac clock for a writing session, forgot about it and found later that my phone had been silent all afternoon too, with a missed call from family waiting. If that worries you, use timed Focuses (For 1 hour, Until the end of this event) rather than open-ended ones, or turn sharing off.

How to silence one app for an hour

Both the iPhone and the Mac can mute a single app from one of its notifications, without touching the app's settings. It's the right move for the app that won't stop today, like a group thread in a team chat during a launch, when you still want its notifications tomorrow.

On iPhone: Mute for 1 Hour or Mute for Today

1. On the Lock Screen or in Notification Center, swipe left over the notification or group.
2. Tap Options.
3. Tap Mute for 1 Hour or Mute for Today. View Settings and Turn Off are there too, per Apple's notifications article.

On Mac: mute from the notification

1. Hover over the notification; if an arrow shows beside the app name, click it.
2. Click More.
3. Choose to mute the app's notifications, or turn them off, per Apple's notifications guide.

Missed the banner? Click the clock to open Notification Center, find the notification there and follow the same steps.

Keep the banner, lose the sound

Sometimes the sound is the only problem. In the Mac's System Settings → Notifications, click the app and turn off Play sound for notification; the banner still appears, per Apple. On iPhone, go to Settings → Notifications, tap the app and switch off Sounds, as Apple's notifications article describes. For every alert sound on the Mac at once, drag the Alert volume slider down under Sound Effects in System Settings → Sound (Apple).

How to silence one conversation in Messages

Hide Alerts silences a single Messages conversation on Mac or iPhone while every other chat still notifies you. It's the polite option for a busy group chat: you stay in it, and you read it when you choose.

• On a Mac: open Messages, select the conversation, click the contact or group icon at the top and turn on Hide Alerts. You can also swipe left with two fingers on the conversation in the sidebar, or select several conversations, Control-click and choose Hide Alerts, per Apple's Messages guide.
• On iPhone: open the conversation, tap the contact or group name at the top and turn on Hide Alerts, or swipe left on the thread and tap the mute button, as Cult of Mac walks through. A small crossed-out bell marks a muted thread.

On the Mac there's one exception worth switching on: Messages → Settings → General → Notify me when my name is mentioned. You still hear about it when someone in a hidden chat mentions you by name (Apple). When a family group chat spent a whole workday planning a birthday dinner, that setting meant I only saw the message that actually asked me something.

Email threads have their own version. If a reply-all chain is the noise, here's how to mute a conversation in Gmail.

How to silence notifications on a schedule

A Focus can switch itself on at set times, so the quiet happens without you remembering. You set the schedule inside the Focus, on each device, and with sharing on the result follows you across them.

1. Mac: in System Settings → Focus, pick a Focus such as Do Not Disturb, or click Add Focus to make a new one like Work, then use Add Schedule in its Set a Schedule section (Apple).
2. iPhone: open Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb and use Set a Schedule. To stop a Focus coming on by itself, turn the schedule off in the same place (Apple).

Inside the same Focus you decide what still gets through. Under Allowed People, the Notifications menu offers Allow Some People or Silence Some People; under Allowed Apps, you can turn on Time Sensitive Notifications so urgent ones like a meeting starting break through (Apple). A deep-work block works best with a very short list. Mine is my calendar and two people, and nobody has ever complained about waiting an hour for an answer. If you use Google Calendar, its Focus time blocks pair well with a scheduled Focus, since your colleagues see the time as taken too.

How to silence notifications while presenting or with the Mac locked

A Mac can keep notifications off the screen automatically whenever you share or mirror your display, so a call or a slide deck never shows someone's message. Go to System Settings → Notifications and look at the Show Notifications options: when display is sleeping, when screen is locked and when mirroring or sharing the display (Apple).

Turn off when mirroring or sharing the display and banners stay hidden whenever the screen is shared. I learned to check this after a calendar reminder slid over a chart I was walking a client through, small but enough to break the flow of the room. Do the same with when screen is locked if your Mac sits on a desk other people walk past.

Why do I still hear notifications after silencing?

Usually because something was allowed to break through. Work down this list before you assume Do Not Disturb is broken:

• An allowed person or app. Check the Focus's Allowed People and Allowed Apps; anything listed there is meant to get through.
• Time Sensitive or critical alerts. An app with Allow time sensitive alerts can break through a Focus that permits them, and Allow critical alerts lets an app through even during a Focus. Both are per-app switches in System Settings → Notifications (Apple).
• An alarm. Clock alarms still sound in iPhone's Silent mode (Apple).
• Silent mode instead of Do Not Disturb. Silent mode stops the ring, not the banner, so the screen keeps lighting up.
• The other device. If Share across devices is off, silencing the Mac leaves the iPhone ringing, and the reverse.
• Sounds that aren't notifications. Music, videos and app sounds aren't notifications, so Do Not Disturb doesn't stop them; that's the volume control's job.
• A Focus schedule ended. A scheduled Focus switches off on time, and the notifications return with it.

A quiet setup worth ten minutes today

1. Learn the Option-click on the Mac clock. It's the fastest silence there is.
2. Check Share across devices is on, and decide whether you like it on.
3. Build one Work Focus with a short Allowed People list and Time Sensitive Notifications on.
4. Turn off when mirroring or sharing the display in Mac notification settings.
5. Hide Alerts on the group chats you read on your own schedule.
6. On iPhone, put Do Not Disturb on a nightly schedule, and leave the Action button or switch for quick Silent mode.

Once that's in place, "silencing" stops being a scramble before each call. It's one click, and the important people can still reach you.