Notifications can be a bother and distraction to your workflow. Here is how to disable or turn off notifications in Windows 11.
No matter who you are and what you are doing, notifications are a big part of our daily life. Starting from Windows to installed applications to websites, almost everything in your computer tries to send some notification from time to time. Whether the information is important or useless, you will get a notification for everything. For example, receiving a notification from your email client regarding an important email is helpful. However, a notification for discount sales, not so much.
Though the notifications bring the information to you in real-time, they can also be a distraction. This is especially true when working on an important assignment or when you don’t want to break your workflow. Not only that, for some Windows users, notifications are a plain nuisance.
In previous Windows versions, apps used to use custom methods to show notifications. That means, if you want to disable notifications, you have to open the target application and turn off notification on its Setting page. You have to do this for every application. Fortunately, in Windows 10 and 11, there is a dedicated notification center. This means, applications can use the notification center to show and manage notifications. The notification center streamlines the entire process and lets you turn on or off notifications on a per-app basis or globally.
Thankfully, you can turn off notifications entirely in Windows 11. If needed, you can also turn off notifications on an app-by-app basis too. For example, if you don’t want to see notifications from a specific software, you can disable notifications just for that application. All you have to do is find the option and turn it off.
In this quick and easy how-to guide, let me show you how to turn off notifications in Windows 11.
Jump to:
Turn off all notifications in Windows 11
You can turn off all Windows 11 notifications from the Settings app. All it takes is modifying a single option, and you are good to go.
- Open the Start menu.
- Search and open Windows 11 “Settings.”
- Select “System” on the sidebar.
- Click on “Notifications” on the main panel.
- Turn off the “Notifications” option.
- Close the Settings app.
- With that, you’ve successfully turned off notifications in Windows 11.
Same steps in a bit more detail and with screenshots:
As I said earlier, you can turn off Windows 11 notifications from the Settings app. So, the first thing to do is open it. To open the Settings app, search for it in the Start menu or press the “Start key + I” shortcut on your keyboard. Alternatively, click on the Volume or Network icon on the taskbar and click on the “Settings” icon in the Quick Settings panel.
After opening the Settings app, click on the “System” option on the sidebar. As you can tell from the section name, most system-specific settings are available in this category. Once you here, click on the “Notifications” option. This is where you will be able to manage all the Windows 11 notification settings.
On the main page, turn off the “Notifications” option. This action will turn off notifications from all applications in Windows 11. You can now close the Settings app.
That is it. From now on, you will not see notifications from apps that respect the Notification settings.
Important note: Even after disabling, apps might show notifications using their custom functionality. For example, my Kaspersky antivirus shows occasional notifications and reminders in a custom window. In those cases, you might have to disable those notifications from the application’s Settings page.
Turn off app-specific notifications in Windows 11
If you don’t want to turn off all notifications, but only for a specific app, you can do that in Windows 11. For example, you might still like to receive notifications regarding incoming emails, slack messages, etc., but want to block an app constantly bothering you with useless notifications. It is pretty easy to do. All you must do is find the app you wish to stop and turn it off. Here is how to do it in Windows 11.
- Open Windows 11 Settings.
- Click on “System” on the sidebar.
- Select “Notifications” on the main panel.
- Find the app under the “Notifications from apps and other senders” section.
- Turn off the app.
- With that, you have disabled the app from showing or sending notifications.
Let us see the same steps in a bit more detail:
As always, you need to open the Windows 11 Settings app. To do that, press the “Windows key + I” shortcut or click the Settings icon on the Quick Settings panel. You can open the Quick Settings panel by clicking on the Network or Volume icon on the taskbar. In the Settings app, click on the “System” tab on the sidebar. Next, click the “Notifications” icon on the main panel.
Now, scroll down and find that app you want to block from sending notifications under the “Notifications from apps and other senders” section. By default, the apps are ordered by “Most recent.” If needed, you can change that to “By name” to make it easy to find the app.
Next, turn off the app to disable notifications from that specific app. For example, I don’t want to see notifications from the Microsoft Store. So, I turned it off.
You can now close the Settings app. From now, Windows will automatically block all notifications from that specific app. All other notifications will appear normally. If you want to block more apps, follow the same steps.
Note: If you cannot find an app in this list, it is not registered with Windows 11. It might be using custom methods or functionality to display notifications. In that case, you have to use the app’s settings page to disable notifications from that app.
That is all. It is that simple to block or turn off notifications from a specific app in Windows 11.
Turn on notifications in Windows 11
Just as you can turn off notifications in Windows 11, you can turn them on entirely or on a per-app basis. Here is how to do it.
- Open Windows 11 Settings.
- Click on “System” on the sidebar.
- Select “Notifications” on the main panel.
- Turn on the “Notifications” option.
- To turn on a specific app, find the app under the “Notifications from apps and other senders” section and enable it.
- Turn on the app.
- With that, you have enabled notifications in Windows 11.
Detailed steps:
Launch the Windows 11 Settings app. You can press the “Start key + I” to open it. In the Settings app, go to the “System > Notifications” page. Here, turn on the “Notifications” option to turn on all notifications.
To turn on notifications from a specific app, find the app under the “Notifications from apps and other senders” section and turn it on.
After that, close the settings app. From now, Windows 11 will show notifications from all allowed apps. As I said earlier, if you cannot find an app under the “Notifications from apps” list, it might be using a custom functionality to show notifications. In that case, you don’t have to do anything to see notifications from that application.
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That is all. It is that simple to turn off notifications in Windows 11, either entirely or on a per-app basis.
I hope this detailed guide has helped you.
If you are stuck or need some help, comment below, and I will try to help as much as possible.
