Notifications (23H2)

Windows 11 supports notifications so that the system and apps can alert you about events that are unrelated to what you’re currently working on. It also provides a Notifications pane so you can review notifications you’ve missed.

Get to know notifications

When Windows 11 or an app needs to deliver a notification–perhaps because of a new email arriving, an event reminder, alarm, or similar occurrence–it does so via a pop-up banner, a small interactive window that appears in the lower right corner of the screen.

Like the mobile apps that you use on an Android phone or tablet, iPhone, or iPad, apps don’t need to be running to trigger notifications. Instead, they use background processes to display notifications as required.

Notification banners can take many different forms, and it’s up to the app maker to decide which features to use. Most are simple, with some text and a few buttons, but they can also include images, quick reply boxes, context menus, progress bars, and other controls.

Internally, notification banners are referred to as toast notifications because the first version of this user interface popped up from the bottom of the screen, similar to toast coming out of a pop-up toaster.

Notification banners appear on-screen for a few seconds before disappearing. If you ignore a miss a notification, Windows 11 will move it into the Notifications pane so that you can review it later.

You can open this pane–and a semi-related Calendar pane by clicking the system tray–it contains a time and date display–on the far right side of the Taskbar.

You can open the Notifications and Calendar panes even more quickly by typing WINKEY + N.

There is no way to open Notifications or Calendar individually.

The system tray also displays a small Notification icon that’s shaped like a bell.

When there are no new notifications to review, the Notification icon in the system tray will be empty. But when there is at least one new notification, it will fill in–appear “full”–using the system accent color.

When you open the Notifications pane, the Notification icon in the system tray visually empties, indicating that there are no longer any new notifications.

The Notification icon supports a third visual state: When Do not disturb is enabled, it appears to be “sleeping” with a few little Z’s over it.

Where did it go?

The bell-shaped Notification icon in the system tray is new to Windows 11 version 23H2. In previous Windows 11 versions, this icon was circular and it would display a number indicating how many notifications were waiting for review. This notification count feature is no longer available and there is no workaround.

Configure notifications

Depending on how you work and which apps you use, you could find yourself dealing with notifications frequently. So you may wish to spend some time configuring how notifications work.

You do so by opening the Settings app and navigating to System > Notifications.

Here, you can make the following configuration changes:

Toggle notifications globally and access additional options. The “Notifications” option here can be used to globally toggle notifications on or off. But you can also expand this option by clicking it. Doing so will display three more related options–“Allow notifications to play sounds,” “Show notifications on the lock screen,” and “Show reminders and incoming VoIP calls on the lock screen”–that are mostly self-explanatory.

Access options related to Do not disturb. Three of the options in Notifications settings–“Do not disturb,” “Turn on do not disturb automatically,” and “Set priority notifications”–are related to Do not disturb, which is a handy way to temporarily disable most notifications.

Each is described in the Do Not Disturb and Focus chapter.

Access options related to Focus. The “Focus” option opens the Focus settings page when clicked. This interface helps you create a Focus session you can use to get work done without distractions.

Focus and focus sessions are also described in the Do Not Disturb and Focus chapter.

Configure notification settings for individual apps and other senders. The “Related settings” area includes a single “Notifications” option that expands to display a new “Notifications from apps and other senders” area when clicked. This lets you configure notification settings for individual apps and system services. This capability is described in the next section.

Configure notifications for an app or system service

To globally disable all notifications for a single app or system service, locate it in the list under “Notifications from apps and other senders” and use the toggle switch to its right to configure it to “Off.”

You can also configure notifications for an app or system service in a more granular way. To do so, select that app or service in the list under “Notifications from apps and other senders” to display its notifications settings page.

This page gives you much more control over app notifications: You can determine how and where they appear, whether a sound plays during a notification, and more.

You might proactively scan the list of apps that can display notifications and configure them in one go. But it’s more likely that you will handle this the way most do with their phones: As notifications become distracting, you will disable then.

In Windows 11 version 23H2, Microsoft added a new feature that helps minimize the distractions by suggesting that you turning off notifications with which you never interact. How does it do this? With a notification banner, of course.

Handle an app notification as it appears

Windows 11 will trigger a notification banner–a floating window that appears in the lower-right corner of the screen–whenever it or an app fires a notification. This banner will appear regardless of what you’re doing for the most part–it can appear over the desktop, over apps, and over the lock screen by default–though banners are disabled in some situations–during full-screen games, for example–and if Do not disturb is enabled.

As noted previously, notification banners vary by app and some provide options right on the window for dealing with the cause of notification. In the image above, for example, you can see that Outlook notifications related to email let you delete, flag, or dismiss a new email message right from the banner, without any need to launch the app.

If you select a notification banner before it disappears–it only stays visible for a few seconds–the underlying app that triggered that notification will open. But if you ignore or miss a notification banner, you can later view it and other notifications in the Notifications pane, as described below.

Notification banners also provide other options via the small “Settings” (“…”) and “Close” (“X”) buttons, the latter of which dismisses the banner.

If you click “Settings,” it will display a menu with the choices “Turn off all notifications for app name” and “Go to notification settings,” which opens the Settings app and navigates to System > Notifications.

Some apps customize their notification banners. For example, Windows Security provides a weekly status update via a notification banner and it has a third item in its Settings context menu, “See fewer notifications.”

Handle previous app notifications

Previous notifications are collected in the Windows 11 Notifications pane so you can manage them later. This pane–and the Calendar pane–appear when you select the system tray–the time/date display and Notifications icon–at the far right of the Taskbar. Otherwise, they remain hidden.

These panes can’t toggled to remain displayed at all times.

You can collapse and expand the Calendar pane using the small “Expand/Collapse” (up/down caret) button in its upper-right to give more or less space to the Notifications pane.

On a PC with multi-touch capabilities, you can also open the Notifications and Calendar panes by swiping in from the right edge of the screen. If you have a touchpad, tapping it simultaneously with four fingers will also open these panes.

To access an app that triggered a notification, click the notification in the Notifications list. For example, if you click the notification for a newly installed app, that app will launch. If you click a notification for, say, a new email message, that message will open in the appropriate app.

When you access a notification this way, it is cleared from Notifications.

You can interact with many notifications directly from the Notifications pane, just as you can with notification banners. In other words, it supports the same “Settings” and “Clear” buttons, and the same menu appears when you click “Settings.”

But there are other options unique to the Notifications pane. For example, many notifications will display an “Expand”/”Collapse” toggle.

When you click this button, the notifications expands in place so you can see more.

And if you mouse over the header above a notification, you will see similar app-level options: “Turn off all notifications for app name,” “Go to notification settings,” and “Make app name high priority.” Selecting that last option will ensure that notifications from this app or system service are always at the top of the list in the Notifications pane.