How to manage Notification settings in Windows 10

Among tons of new features that you’ll find in the new Windows 10 Feature Update, you’ll also notice some useful improvements made to Notification settings. The changes come in the wake of many complaints Windows 10 users had made. For many of them, notification settings weren’t easily discoverable. And even if they were found easily, they were quite difficult to understand. Microsoft has tried to address all those concerns in the recent edition.

How to manage Notification settings in Windows 10

Windows 10 v2004 introduces a series of notification improvements. Among many things, in the notifications, you’ll see:

1. A Settings icon.
2. Thumbnails for notification banners.
3. Option to mute notifications.
4. New Manage notifications button.

Let’s learn about these new features in a bit of detail.

The first thing that is readily visible when you receive a new notification is a small ‘Settings’ icon.

The icon, when clicked provides you with extra options. You can either choose to go to its settings or disable all its notifications in one go. So, you don’t have to head over to the Settings app to make changes all the time. With this, things are faster now, and it all takes a couple of clicks to disable the notifications for a specific app.

Secondly, now, small thumbnails for notification banners will appear in the Action Center, making it easier to visualize the app to which you intend to make changes.

If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find Microsoft has also included notification improvements in the Action Center, by introducing a new ‘Manage notifications’ button to jump right to the ‘Settings’ screen.

Lastly, you can stop Windows 10 from bothering you to complete setting up the additional features after an upgrade. For instance, you can continue using notifications, but without any sound by simply switching the toggle to ‘On’ or ‘Off’ position.

Also, to make room for some other changes, Microsoft has moved ‘No notifications’ text down to the middle of the Action Center, which also means your eyes don’t have to traverse as far to see it when you launch the Action Center from the bottom of the screen.

For a detailed read visit: How to customize Notifications and Action Center.

Windows 10 Notification settings get new customization options

Microsoft recently released a new Windows 10 Insider Preview 20H1 build. This time, the company introduced three new interesting features that are going to be available to the general public in a few months’ time.

Twitter users reported that Windows 10 20H1 Update is bringing some important changes in the Notification Settings.

Future Windows 10 20H1 builds will introduce some small but pleasant changes to notification settings. You’ll be able to sort notification senders & get more visuals when configuring a particular sender. pic.twitter.com/EXsimOJDlT

The upcoming Windows 10 version allows users to sort Notifications based on two options i.e Most recent and by Name.

Furthermore, you can also choose how many notifications should appear in the notification center.

Notification prioritization is another new feature that came along with this release. It means that you can now adjust notification settings so that important notifications appear at the top.

All in all, the upcoming Windows 10 version will completely transform how notifications appear on your screen.

Did you know you can now manage phone notifications on PC?

Windows 10 users appreciate the changes

Many users appreciated Microsoft’s efforts and said that it is a much-needed change.

Yessss. We need more Visuals in the settings app. This is a welcome change

Another user liked the fact that Microsoft is finally working on improving Windows 10‘s UI.

I like they’ve introduced some colors, it’s about time to overhaul @WindowsUI and deliver.

Windows 10 users are looking forware to test the additional features. One Windows 10 user who responded to Albacore’s tweet stated that:

now they just need to add a location setting, need it in the top right corner

The tech giant is actively working on new features based on popular user demands and feedback. It is a positive change that Microsoft finally decided to improve the existing functionality of Windows 10 notifications.

What do you think about the improved notification settings? Let us know in the comments section below.

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How to customize notifications on Windows 10 to make them less annoying

Action Center is a new feature that Microsoft included in Windows 10 to collect all system and apps notifications in one central place, and keep you from missing any important event.

However, as more apps and services begin to connect with your devices, you can become overwhelmed with so many notifications, and you need a way to control all these alerts coming your way all the time.

In this Windows 10 guide, we’ll be looking to the different ways in which you can easily customize notifications to make them less annoying, including on specific apps, such as Mail & Calendar and Microsoft Edge. Also, we even show you how to stop displaying badge notifications on taskbar buttons as well as on the Action Center button.

Disclaimer: While many of the customization options we’re detailing in this guide are available in the official release of Windows 10 (version 1511), some others are features part of the Anniversary Update, but they are also available in the latest Insider preview of the operating system.

How to customize notifications on Windows 10

Since Microsoft introduced notifications with Windows 8, you’re able to control various aspects of how they behave, but in Windows 10, and even with the Anniversary Update, you now have even more control to make notifications less annoying on the desktop.

To customize your notification experience use these steps:

1. Use the Windows key + I keyboard shortcut to open the Settings app.
2. Click System.
3. Click Notifications & actions.

Once in the notification settings page you can do the following:

Under Notifications, you can turn off various global configurations to reduce the number of alerts you receive on the desktop. For example, you can stop showing tips about Windows, and you can stop showing alarms, reminders, or incoming call on the lock screen.

If you often show PowerPoint presentations or another kind of slides, one feature you want to turn on is the «Hide notifications while presenting». (The last thing you want is to get interrupted by a toast notification in the middle of a business meeting.)

Under Show notifications from these apps, you can manually turn on or off which apps show notifications.

If you want to get more granular, you can also click an app to customize different types of notification features for a particular app.

For example, you can turn off various settings, including the ability to let the app receive notifications, but suppressing the banner, which will only make them available through Action Center. Or you can set it to only show banner while stopping notifications from appearing in Action Center.

Also, if you have an app the gets a lot of notifications, such as the Mail app, you can also choose to stop playing a sound when a new notification arrives.

Starting with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update and later, Microsoft is also adding the ability to configure the number of notifications an app can display, and you can also set their priority inside Actions center.

The default number of visible notifications per app is three, but you can set a minimum of 1 or a max of 20. For priority, you can choose between three levels, including Top, High, Normal (default).

More notification options

There are additional notification options that you can configure, but Microsoft is listing them in different sections of the Settings app, or they are built into specific apps.

How to change the time on notifications

If toast notifications are being displayed for too long for your liking, you can change how long notifications are shown by using these steps:

1. Use the Windows key + I keyboard shortcut to open the Settings app.
2. Click System.
3. Click Ease of Access.
4. Click Other options.

Under Visual options, select for how long you want toast notifications are shown. The default option is 5 seconds, but you can choose up to 5 minutes.

How to change Mail & Calendar notifications

While you can customize many options through the Settings app, perhaps you only want to reduce the number of notifications from a particular email account, but you may not want to disable necessarily all notifications globally.

The following steps will show you the how to customize notifications on each email account in the Mail app:

1. Open the Mail app.
2. Click the Settings button.

Click Notifications.

Select the account and customize whether you want to show notifications in the Action Center, show banner, and play a sound.

How to disable web notifications for specific sites on Microsoft Edge

In the Anniversary Update for Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing web notifications that also show up in Action Center. And similar to the Mail app, you can easily manage these notifications after you allowed websites to show banners and alerts.

1. Open Microsoft Edge.
2. Open the browser’s menu and select Settings.
3. Scroll down and click Advanced settings.

Scroll down and under notifications, click Manage.

In this section, you’ll see listed all the sites currently allowed to show notifications. Either turn off the site that you want to stop temporarily seeing alerts or hover over the site name and click «X» to delete the site.

How to disable badge notifications on the taskbar

Badges are a new type of notifications that appear on supported Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and on the Action Center button in the taskbar to notify you of any alert on a particular app.

Although they are quite useful as you don’t have to open Action Center, Start, or the app to see alerts, Windows 10 is attacking you with notifications on all fronts, which can make badges in the taskbar a little too much for some people.

If you prefer to disable these notifications, then do the following:

1. Use the Windows key + I keyboard shortcut to open the Settings app.
2. Click Personalization.
3. Click Taskbar.

Turn off the Show badges on taskbar buttons.

The previous steps will stop badges from showing up in the taskbar, but not in the Action Center button. If you also want to disable the badge and app icons for the button, then right-click Action Center button in the right corner of the taskbar, and select Don’t show app icons and Don’t show number of new notifications.

It’s worth pointing out that badges are new to Windows 10, but they’re not unique. Apple OS X and iOS have included support for badge notifications for a long time.

Wrapping things up

Of course, remember that for those times when you need a total pause from notifications, you can always open Action Center (Windows key + A) or right-click the Action Center button in the taskbar to enable Quiet Hours.

While Windows 10 can overwhelm you with tons of notifications by default, the operating system incorporates different customization options to reduce the number of alerts you get in your devices. And as we’ve looked in this guide, you can control notifications globally in your computer and per app.

How do you have set up notifications on your Windows 10 device? Let us know in the comments below.

More on Windows 10

For more help articles, coverage, and answers on Windows 10, you can visit the following resources:

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