How to temporarily turn off all Notifications on a Mac

Updated March 31st, 2019.

Notifications (those little banners that slide in at the top right of your screen) are handy.

It’s nice to be notified that you got an email, or a Message, and nice to be able to respond right there. But, sometimes you want to focus on something, or watch a video full-screen, or otherwise not be bothered.

Here’s how you temporarily turn Notifications off, quickly and easily. (Apple calls this “Do Not Disturb” mode.)

Note: it’s just as easy to turn them back on.

All you do is hold down the Option key and click on the Notification menu at the very top right of your screen. When you do it, the icon goes from black to grey. Option-click it again to turn Notifications back on. You’ll see the icon return to black when you do it.

So easy! Way easier than going to the Notification control panel and doing it there.

BONUS: here’s a link to my other articles about cool things you can do with the Option key.

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