Use notifications on your iPhone or iPad
View and manage your notifications to minimize 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 show 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 Center
Notification Center 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 Center:
From the Lock Screen, swipe up from the middle of the screen.
From any other screen, swipe down from the center 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 Center:
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: Shows the total number of notifications at the bottom of the screen. You can tap the count to see notifications.
Stack: Shows notifications stacked at the bottom of the screen, with the most recent notification at the top.
List: Shows notifications in a list.
You need iOS 16 or later to change how your notifications appear.
Change how notifications sound for a specific app
Go to Settings > Notifications.
Under Notification Style, tap the app you want to edit notifications for.
Tap Sounds to turn on audio alerts for a specific app. For certain apps like FaceTime or Messages, you can select a specific tone to play with each notification from that app.
If your phone is silenced or the volume is turned down completely, notification sounds will not play.
Turn summaries in notifications on or off in iOS 18.1
In iOS 18.1 with an iPhone 16 or an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and later Pro models, you can receive summaries of notifications through Apple Intelligence. When you turn on Summarize Notifications, your iPhone will summarize direct messages and groups of notifications to make them more succinct and easier to read. These summaries of notifications appear in italics. You can always tap on a summarized notification to expand it and view the full text.
To turn Notification summaries on or off:
In the Settings app, tap Notifications.
Tap Summarize Notifications.
Turn Summarize Notifications on or off.
When you turn on Summarize Notifications, you can also turn Notification summaries on or off for specific apps.
Apple Intelligence is available in beta on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, all iPhone 16 and later models, iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad models with M1 and later, with Siri and device language set to the same supported language.
Apple Intelligence uses generative models and outputs may vary. Check important information for accuracy.
Turn Priority Notifications on or off in iOS 18.4
In iOS 18.4 with an iPhone 16 or an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and later Pro models, you can use Apple Intelligence to prioritize important and time-sensitive notifications. Priority notifications appear at the top of the Notification Center, so you can catch up on what you may have missed. You can still swipe up to view all notifications.
In the Settings app, tap Notifications.
Tap Priority Notifications.
Turn Priority Notifications on or off.
To turn Priority Notifications off for a specific app, go to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications and turn Priority Notifications off for a specific app.
Change alert styles
Go to Settings and tap Notifications.
Select an app under Notification Style.
Under Alerts, choose the alert style that 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 appears 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 come through even if your iPhone is muted or you have a Focus set up.
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.
How to check Focus settings and Notifications settings for a specific app
How to check paired devices and settings for Messages notifications
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