Tune notification banners app by app
Set banners, sounds, and Notification Center visibility per app while preserving urgent alerts.
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Setup and requirements
In Settings > System > Notifications, keep notifications enabled while changing each app’s banner, Notification Center, and sound options. Turning off banners can remove an interruption while retaining a message to review later. Before silencing an app, identify senders you cannot afford to miss—such as calendar, security, or work mail—and put them in the priority list. Browser websites can also have their own notification permissions, so changing Windows alone may not silence every alert.
A practical use
Under automatic Do not disturb rules, Windows can silence alerts during selected hours, while duplicating a display, gaming, or using a full-screen app. Priority settings allow chosen apps, calls, and reminders through. Display duplication is convenient for a presentation, but an urgent customer alert could be hidden; confirm the exception list and run a harmless test before an important event. Muted notifications are generally available in Notification Center after the focused activity.
Practitioner perspective
Microsoft Support documents per-app banners, sounds, and Do not disturb exceptions. Windows Central’s Mauro Huculak describes disabling toast banners while keeping messages available in Notification Center, a practical compromise between uninterrupted work and losing a reminder. That balance depends on the sender and the task. Lock-screen previews can reveal message text to someone nearby, so on shared or unattended devices review preview visibility separately from the banner setting.
Limits and troubleshooting
Do not disturb can still allow alarms and priority apps; other notifications are routed to Notification Center rather than necessarily deleted. If a banner appears, check whether that sender is on the priority list or whether the automatic rule ended. If expected alerts are missing, open Notification Center and inspect that app’s notification permissions. After a presentation or full-screen session, confirm that Do not disturb has switched off or that its schedule ended so follow-up messages are visible.