Apple’s MacOS provides notifications that pop up in the upper-right corner of the display. These can be for new email messages, appointment reminders, task reminders, and app-specific notifications. If you don’t respond to a notification immediately, then it hides but doesn’t completely go away.
The Notification Center provides quick access to these active notifications, as well as to a customizable collection of handy widgets. Using the Notification Center to manage notifications and use widgets is quick and easy.
Contents
- Open and close the Notification Center
- Manage notifications in the Notification Center
- Manage widgets in Notification Center
Difficulty
Easy
Duration
5 minutes
What You Need
-
MacOS
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Open and close the Notification Center
There are two methods for opening and closing the Notification Center.
Step 1: To open the Notification Center, select the Time and date section on the menu bar or use a two-finger swiping motion away from the right side of the touchpad.
Step 2: To close the Notification Center, select the Time and date section again or use a two-finger swiping motion toward the right side of the touchpad.
Manage notifications in the Notification Center
There are several actions you can take on notifications within the Notification Center.
Step 1: As notifications arrive and aren’t dealt with, they accumulate in the Notification Center in stacks per application. To see all the notifications in a stack, simply select the top notification.
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Step 2: Select Show less to return a stack of notifications to its collapsed state. To completely close a stack of notifications, hover over the X button and select Clear all.
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Step 3: It’s possible to control an app’s notification settings from the Notification Center. If a notification has a “>” in the upper right hand corner, select it and then select the Triple-dots menu button. In the example below, you can mute the notification for an hour or an entire day or turn off the notifications completely.
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Manage widgets in Notification Center
Widgets make the Notification Center even more fun and useful. It’s easy enough to manage your widgets.
Step 1: You can manage an active widget by pressing the *Control * key and clicking the widget with your mouse or touchpad to select it. In the menu that pops up, you can select a different size, edit the widget’s properties, remove the widget, or edit all of the active widgets.
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Step 2: If you select Edit widgets, you’ll be presented with a screen that allows you to remove widgets, add new widgets, and rearrange the active widgets.
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Want to add to your notification pile even further? Here are some of the best chat apps for Windows and MacOS.