Use notifications on your iPhone or iPad
Find out how to view and manage your notifications to minimise interruptions throughout the day.
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 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.
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.
Schedule a notification summary
With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later, you can schedule times to receive a summary of notifications each day so you can catch up when it's convenient for you. The summary is personalised to you and ordered by priority based on how you use your apps. The most relevant notifications will appear at the top.
To schedule a notification summary:
Go to Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary, then turn on Scheduled Summary.
Under Apps in Summary, select the apps you want to include in your notification summary.
Under Schedule, tap the Add button
to add a new schedule or the Remove button
to remove a schedule. Then adjust the time for each scheduled summary you've set up.
To add new apps to the summary, go back to Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary and select the apps under Apps in Summary. Each app will appear with a number, which is the average number of notifications you receive from that app each day.
Change alert styles
Go to Settings and tap Notifications.
Select an app under Notification Style.
Under Alerts, choose the alert style you want. If you turn on Allow Notifications, you can choose when you want the notifications to be delivered – immediately or in the scheduled notification summary.
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.
Change group notification settings
Go to Settings and tap Notifications.
Select an app and tap Notification Grouping.
Select one of these options:
Automatic: the notifications from the app will be grouped according to organising criteria within the app, such as by topic or thread.
By App: all of the notifications from the app will be grouped together.
Off: turn off grouping.
Turn off notifications for specific apps
Go to Settings > Notifications, then tap Siri Suggestions.
Turn off any app.
Change how notifications appear on the Lock Screen
Go to Settings > Notifications and select an app.
Tap Show Previews and choose an option.
Set up location-based alerts
Some apps will use your location to send you relevant alerts based on where you are. For example, you may get a reminder to call someone when you get to a specific place or when you leave to go to your next location.
If you don't want to receive these types of alert, you can turn them off. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, then tap an app to turn alerts on or off based on your location. Learn more about Location Services.
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