How to silence notifications on iPhone

Notifications pinging in those tender moments? Fed up of being interrupted during a game or movie? Don’t fret, follow this quick guide.

The iPhone has a few ways to turn off notifications, depending on how much you don’t want to be disturbed.

As we’re all terminally online these days, the use of ‘brb’ is no longer around, and your tiny supercomputer consistently ties you to everyone, it’s only natural to want to put an end to the madness.

To start with, the iPhone can put your notifications on vibrate by simply hitting the side switch. This turns off all outputted audio, aside from videos and music. It does mean that when you want to play a game, it will also silence that too.

Turn off notifications in iOS settings app

If you want to cull the notifications entirely, you can always head into the various apps you’re getting pinged by and turn off the notifications there. For instance, on Twitter, turning off push notifications will stop any and all messages coming through until you turn them back on.

Each app is different, so be sure to just hunt around them for your ‘notification‘ section of their settings. If you want a general-purpose notification block, you can always head into the settings app and choose which apps have notifications enabled at a system level. This bypasses all the app settings entirely.

iOS focuses

Another way is through ‘focuses’. These are just rebrands of the various do not disturb methods from old phones, but you can customize them a little further. The default Do Not Disturb will prevent any notifications from coming through. Altering the settings a little deeper will let you turn on and off certain contacts, and apps.

To alter or create a focus, you can scroll down from the right-hand side corner. This will bring up the control center. Here, press and hold the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button and it’ll surface the options.

Pressing the three dots will also let you choose to activate or deactivate while at a particular location.