Don’t like constant notifications from Windows Defender? Here’s a simple way to disable Windows Defender notifications in Windows 10.
Windows Defender is a pretty good default antivirus software in Windows 10. It works silently in the background and provides you the much needed real-time protection from all kinds of threats. Along as there is no other antivirus application on your system, Windows Defender constantly runs in the background. One of the best things about Windows Defender is that it consumes the least system resources and provides one of the best protection in the antivirus industry.
Windows Defender automatically scans your system from time to time and displays the results in the form of notifications. Not only that but Windows Defender also displays other kinds of notifications like account, firewall, and network. This is applicable even if you are using third-party antivirus software to protect your system. If these notifications are overwhelming you or causing unnecessary distractions, you can disable them or control them.
So, without further ado, let me show the steps to disable Windows Defender notifications in Windows 10.
Types of Windows Security Notifications
Windows Defender divides all its notifications into three major categories. They are as follows.
Information Notifications: This notification channel is responsible for displaying Windows Defender activities like scan reports, threat alerts, and blocked files and folder. I recommend you not to disable this notification category as it shows only important notifications.
Account Protection Notifications: This notification channel is responsible for Windows Hello and Dynamic lock settings.
Firewall & Network Protection Notifications: As the name implies, this channel is responsible for showing Windows Firewall activities. For example, if an application is blocked by Windows Firewall, then Windows Defender uses this channel to show the notification of that activity.
Depending on what you need, you can disable all notifications or individual notification types or channels.
1] Disable Windows Defender Notifications via Settings App
Once you know the Windows Defender notification types, you can easily pick and choose the type of notifications you want to receive.
1. First, search for “Windows Security” in the start menu and click on the search result to open the Windows Security app.
Note: Microsoft renamed Windows Defender to Windows Security
2. Once the application has been opened, click on the “Settings” tab appearing on the bottom left corner. Next, click on the “Manage Notifications” link under the Notifications section.
3. The above action will take you to the Notification channels page. Here, you will see three different notification channels as discussed above. If you want to disable all three notification channels, toggle the switch to the OFF position under each notification channel.
Note: I strongly recommend you turn ON the “Informational Notifications” channel (the first one).
Alternatively, you can also pick and choose which types of notifications you want to receive. To do that, uncheck the checkboxes next to the notification types you want to disable. For example, I don’t want to receive notifications for Dynamic Lock. So, I deselected that option.
That is it. After configuring, close the Windows Security app and you are done.
2] (Alternative) via Group Policy – GPO
If you are looking for a much simpler alternative method then the Group Policy object is the way to go.
1. Open the start menu, search for “Edit Group Policy” and click on the result to open the Group Policy Editor.
2. In the Group Policy Editor, go to the following folder by expanding the folder tree on the left panel.
Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Defender Antivirus → Client Interface
3. On the right panel, find and double-click on the “Suppress all notifications” policy.
4. Now, select the “Enabled” option and click on the “Ok” button to save changes. This action will disable Windows Security notifications.
5. Finally, either reboot Windows or execute gpupdate /force
command in elevated Command Prompt.
That is all. It is that simple to disable Windows Defender notifications in Windows 10. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, do check how to limit Windows Defender CPU usage and how to schedule Windows Defender scan.