Use notifications on your iPhone or iPad
View and manage your notifications to minimise interruptions, and make sure you receive notifications in the way you expect.
Open from the Lock Screen
You can see your recent notifications on the Lock Screen by picking up your iPhone or waking your iPad. You can also do these things from the Lock Screen:
Tap a single notification to open the app that it's from.
Tap a group of notifications to view all recent notifications from that app.
Swipe left over a notification to manage alerts for that app or clear the notification.
Touch and hold a notification to view the notification and perform quick actions if the app offers them.
To display the contents of notifications on the Lock Screen without unlocking your device, go to Settings > Notifications > Show Previews and select Always.
In iOS 17 and later, you can also view notifications while your iPhone is in StandBy.
Open from Notification Centre
Notification Centre shows your notifications history, allowing you to scroll back and see what you've missed. There are two ways to see your alerts from the Notification Centre:
From the Lock Screen, swipe up from the middle of the screen.
From any other screen, swipe down from the centre of the top left of your screen.
To clear your notification history, tap the Close button
, then tap Clear.
Manage notifications
To manage your notifications from the Lock Screen or Notification Centre:
Swipe left over an alert or group of alerts.
Tap Options, then select from these options:
Mute for 1 Hour
Mute for Today
View Settings
Turn Off
You can also tap View Settings to change your alert styles or alert settings for a specific app.
Schedule a notifications summary for a specific time of day
Change whether your notifications are grouped together
Change how notifications appear
Go to Settings > Notifications.
Under Display As, choose how you want notifications to appear on the Lock Screen:
Count: displays the total number of notifications at the bottom of the screen. You can tap the count to see notifications.
Stack: displays notifications stacked at the bottom of the screen, with the most recent notification at the top.
List: displays notifications in a list.
You’ll need iOS 16 or later to change how your notifications appear.
Change alert styles
Go to Settings and tap Notifications.
Select an app under Notification Style.
Under Alerts, choose the alert style you want.
When you turn on badges, certain app icons can display information. If you turn on badges for Mail, for example, the number of unread emails in your inbox will appear above the Mail icon on your Home Screen.
With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later, you can turn on Critical Alerts for supported apps, so notifications will come through even if your iPhone is muted or you've set up a Focus.
Make sure you receive notifications in the way you expect
If you don’t get notifications in the way that you want, you might have a specific notifications setting turned on or off.
Customise then turn on or off a Focus setting that reduces notifications
With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later, Focus lets you stay in the moment when you need to concentrate or step away from your device. You can customise Focus settings to choose when you want to receive alerts and notifications and to select what apps or contacts can generate alerts and notifications.
Open Control Centre.
Tap the Focus setting – such as Do Not Disturb or Work – that appears. (If only the Focus icon is there, no Focus setting is on.)
Tap the Focus setting again to turn it off.
Check settings for apps you want notifications from
In the Settings app, tap Notifications.
Tap the app that you haven’t received notifications from.
Turn on Allow Notifications then choose how and where you want to receive those.
Set alerts to choose whether notifications appear on your Lock Screen, in Notifications Centre or as a Banner while you use your iPhone
When you turn on Announce Notifications, Siri will read notifications from the app out loud.
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