In this post, I will show you how to silence notifications and even calls on your Apple devices for a limited amount of time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being notified of important emails, messages and reminders, yet there are times when I would love to get rid of them.
If you don’t know how to tweak the notification level/frequency on an app by app basis, I’ll show you in the next post.
Here, I’ll focus on temporarily blocking most of them with a single switch, called “Do Not Disturb”.
I say “most” because depending on other settings (like VIP for instance) some emails, messages and calls still can get through.
There are two ways to activate “Do not disturb”:
Manually
Automatically (during a pre-defined time window)
The quickest way to manually activate (and deactivate) “Do not disturb” on your iDevice is via "Control Centre".
On iPhone X/XR/XS/XS Max (or any iPad running iOS 12):
Swipe down from the top right corner of the screen
Tap on the icon with the moon symbol
Swipe up to close Control Centre
On any iPhone with a home button (or any iPad running iOS 11 and below):
Swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen
Tap on the icon with the moon symbol
Swipe down to close “Control Centre”
Specifically for iOS 12 and up
And, since iOS 12, it's possible to long press on the moon icon to get additional options, like specifying how long "Do Not Disturb" needs to be activated for, based:
on a set duration
or until an calendar event is finished
or until you leave the current location
Automatic activation of “Do Not disturb”
Now, if you would like notifications to automatically be turned off, say at 7PM and be turned back on at 6AM, without having to do anything, then you can configure it like this:
Open “Settings”
Scroll down and tap on “Do Not Disturb"
Tick the option “Scheduled"
Tap to adjust the “From / To” settings
You can also configure whether calls (phone and FaceTime) are allowed or not and even specify a group of contact that would not be blocked.
And you, how often do you use “Do Not Disturb” on your iPhone?
Just let me know in the comments!
