Use VoiceOver to navigate Notification Centre on Mac
Use Notification Centre to review in one location information from your favourite widgets and notifications you haven’t acted on yet.
Depending on your settings, the Today view shows information such as the weather and stocks, and events or reminders. You can customise it to show information from other widgets. Notifications view shows app and system notifications.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier.
Open and close Notification Centre
Open Notification Centre: Press VO-M-M to jump to menu extras in the menu bar, press VO-Right Arrow until you hear Notification Centre, then press VO-Space bar.
To switch between Today and Notifications view, press VO-Right Arrow or VO-Left Arrow.
Close Notification Centre: Press the Escape key or Fn-Tab.
In Keyboard preferences, you can create a shortcut to open Notification Centre. See Use global keyboard shortcuts.
Navigate Today or Notifications view
Today view: Select the radio button by pressing VO-Space bar, press VO-Down Arrow to navigate to the widgets scroll area, then interact with the area.
To navigate in the area, press VO and an arrow key.
Notifications view: Select the radio button by pressing VO-Space bar, press VO-Right Arrow to navigate to the table, then interact with the table.
To navigate the items in the table, press VO and an arrow key.
If you want to reorder widgets in Today view, you must remove the widgets, then add them back. Because the most recently added widget appears at the top of the view, be sure to add the widgets back in the reverse order of how you want them to appear.
From either view, you can open Notifications preferences to change Do Not Disturb and other settings. Navigate to the Notifications preferences button in the lower-right corner of the view, then press VO-Space bar. Notification Centre closes as the preferences open.
Edit a widget in Today view
Navigate to an editable widget.
Press VO-Command-Space bar to display the Actions menu, press VO-Down Arrow until VoiceOver announces “Show editing view”, then press VO-Space bar to select it.
Interact with the widget, then add or remove items from it. For example, interact with the Stock widget to add or remove stock symbols.
When you’ve finished, stop interacting with the widget, press VO-Command-Space bar to display the Actions menu, then choose “Show default view”.
Add widgets in Today view
Navigate to the bottom of Today view until you hear Edit or New, then press VO-Space bar to select the Edit or New button.
Navigate until VoiceOver announces New Widgets, then interact with the new widgets area.
Press VO-Right Arrow to navigate to a widget’s Add button, then press VO-Space bar.
The widget is added at the top of Today view.
Remove widgets in Today view
Navigate to the bottom of Today view until you hear Edit or New, then press VO-Space bar to select the Edit or New button.
Press VO-Down Arrow, then interact with the widgets scroll area.
For widgets in use, VoiceOver announces a Remove button followed by the widget name.
For the widget you want to remove, navigate to its Remove button, then press VO-Space bar.
The removed widget is added to a list of items located to the right of the widgets scroll area, so that you can add it back later if you want.
Download widgets from the Mac App Store
Navigate to the bottom of Today view until you hear Edit or New, then press VO-Space bar to select the Edit or New button.
Navigate to the App Store button at the bottom of Today view, then press VO-Space bar to open App Store.
After you select and download a widget, it appears in Today view.