Manage iPhone notifications and Live Activities on Mac

After iPhone Mirroring connects to your iPhone, notifications and Live Activies from your iPhone automatically appear on your Mac.

Get iPhone notifications and Live Activities on Mac

Follow the steps to use iPhone Mirroring to connect your iPhone to your Mac. Your Mac then automatically receives notifications and Live Activities from your iPhone, even when iPhone Mirroring is not in use. Your iPhone must be turned on, but it doesn’t need to be nearby.

Notifications from your iPhone

Notifications from your iPhone show an iPhone badge over the app icon in each notification:

If you clear a notification on your iPhone, it's also cleared on your Mac.

If your iPhone is nearby, interacting with an iPhone notification opens the related app in iPhone Mirroring, so that you can continue your task there.

Live Activities from your iPhone

Live Activities from your iPhone appear in the menu bar:

Depending on the space available in your menu bar, you see either a small Live Activity icon or a compact view of the activity. Click it for more detail.

If your iPhone is nearby, double-clicking the Live Activity on your Mac opens iPhone Mirroring, so that you can continue your task there.

Choose the iPhone that your Mac uses

If you have more than one iPhone that is signed in to your Apple Account and nearby, you can choose the one that your Mac uses for mirroring, iPhone notifications, and Live Activities:

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Settings, then click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar.

2. Choose your iPhone from the iPhone pop-up menu on the right. This menu appears just below the iPhone Widgets setting. It appears only when your Mac detects more than one iPhone that can be used for mirroring.

Stop receiving iPhone notifications or Live Activities

Use your Mac or iPhone to control which iPhone notifications or Live Activities that your Mac receives.

Mac

1. Choose Apple menu  > System Settings.

2. Click Notifications in the sidebar, then click "Allow notifications from iPhone" on the right.*

   1. Turn "Allow notifications from iPhone" off or on. When it’s on, you can also control notifications for each iPhone app individually.

      • If an app’s setting says that mirroring is disabled from your iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications on your iPhone and check the app’s setting there, including the Show on Mac setting.

      • If an app’s setting says that the app is installed on this Mac, you can receive notifications only from the Mac app, not also the iPhone version of that app.

   2. Turn "Allow Live Activities from iPhone" (available in macOS Tahoe 26 or later) off or on. You can also turn off a specific Live Activity for the duration of that activity: When the Live Activity appears in your menu bar, click it for more detail, then move your mouse over the Live Activity and click the close button in the corner.

iPhone

1. Go to Settings > Notifications.

2. Tap the name of an app.

   • To prevent both your iPhone and your Mac from receiving notifications from that app, turn off Allow Notifications.

   • To prevent only your Mac from receiving the notifications, turn off Show on Mac.*

3. To control Live Activities on both iPhone and Mac, go to Settings > Apps, then tap the name of an app that supports Live Activities. Tap Live Activities, then turn Live Activities off or on.

To see a list of each Mac that used iPhone Mirroring with your iPhone and can receive its notifications and Live Activities, go to Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity > iPhone Mirroring. If you swipe left on the Mac name, then tap Delete, that Mac can no longer receive notifications or Live Activities from your iPhone, unless it’s used to set up iPhone Mirroring with your iPhone again.

Learn more

• When your Mac is set up to make and receive calls from your iPhone, it always receives notifications about incoming calls from your iPhone. This is not related to iPhone Mirroring.

• The iPhone setting at Settings > Notifications > Screen Sharing > Allow Notifications is not related to iPhone Mirroring, but to notifications when using SharePlay or using Screen Mirroring.