iPhone notifications can be incredibly useful, but when you get too many of them, it’s easy to lose sight of the ones that really matter. Here’s how I took back control of my iPhone notifications.

1
Turn Off Notifications You Never Read

It’s all too easy to grant permission for an app to send you notifications, and then end up ignoring all the notifications that it sends. Before you know it, your Notification Center is full of useless notifications that make it hard to spot the ones that actually matter.

The popular organizing consultant Marie Kondo has a rule that you should only keep items if they “spark joy” and while notifications may not spark joy, you should only keep them if they’re actually of any genuine use.

I went through all the notifications in my Notification Center and considered whether the notification offered any useful information or whether it was something that I didn’t really need to know. I then turned off the notifications I didn’t need.

For many notifications, it’s possible to turn them off directly from the Notification Center. Swipe left on a notification that you no longer want to see. Tap “Options.” Select “Turn Off.”

If you don’t see the “Options” button, go to Settings > Notifications, scroll down, and select the appropriate app. Toggle “Allow Notifications” off.

2
Change App Settings to Stop Notifications at the Source

You may find that turning off notifications completely means that you miss some important notifications that you’d like to receive. The trouble is that you also get a lot of other notifications from the same app that you have no interest in. If this is the case, you can try changing the notification settings within the app itself, to stop the deluge of unhelpful notifications.

For example, in WhatsApp, by default, you get a notification when someone reacts to one of your messages. If your friends and family are a little emoji-happy, your Notification Center can soon get full of WhatsApp notifications that aren’t particularly helpful. You can turn these off in the WhatsApp app, while still ensuring that you get a notification when a new message is received.

Open WhatsApp and tap the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the screen. Select “Notifications.” Toggle “Reaction Notifications” off under “Message Notifications,” “Group Notifications,” and “Status Notifications.” You should no longer receive any unwanted notifications about reactions to your messages.

You’ll need to repeat this process for other apps as necessary.

3
Use Focus Modes to Limit Notifications

It may be the case that you’re happy to deal with notifications when you have some free time but don’t want to be bombarded by them when you’re working. If so, you can use Focus modes to restrict notifications.

For example, in my Work focus, I’ve restricted notifications to just six apps. Notifications from all other apps are silenced. They can still be found in the Notification Center if I want to see them, but they won’t pop up on my iPhone and ruin my concentration.

Go to Settings > Focus. Select the mode that you want to restrict notifications for. Under “Allow Notifications,” tap “Apps.” Check “Allow Notifications From” and tap the “Add” button and select the apps for which you want to allow notifications. Uncheck any apps that you don’t want notifications from.

Notifications from all other apps will be silenced when you’re using that Focus mode.

Tap “People” if you want to allow all notifications from specific people. Check “Allow Notifications From,” tap the “Add” button, and select the contacts that you want to allow notifications for. Notifications for all other contacts will be delivered silently.

4
Group Notifications by App For Fewer Groups

Your iPhone will group notifications, but not all notifications from the same app will necessarily be placed into one group by default. For example, notifications from ChatGPT relating to my scheduled tasks tend to be split into different groups for different tasks. This means I have several groups of ChatGPT notifications in my Notification Center, making it look even more of a mess.

It’s possible to change the grouping so that all of my ChatGPT notifications are grouped into one stack, keeping my Notification Center looking a little less cluttered and making it easier to spot notifications I might otherwise miss. You can do the same for any other apps you want.

Go to Settings > Notifications. Scroll down and select the app that you want to group notifications for. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap “Notification Grouping.” Select “By App.” All notifications for that app will now be grouped into a single stack.

5
Mute Chats That Aren’t Time-Sensitive

A lot of my notifications are from messaging apps such as WhatsApp, but many of them relate to chats that aren’t time-sensitive. Most messaging apps allow you to mute specific conversations so that you stop receiving notifications every time there’s a new message in that conversation. That way, you can restrict the notifications to only those contacts or conversations that are important.

Open WhatsApp to the “Chats” tab. Swipe left on a chat you want to mute notifications for. Tap “More” and select “Mute.”

If you only want to mute notifications during the day, open the chat and tap the name of the chat at the top of the screen. Tap “Notifications” and select “Mute Notifications” under “Messages.” Select “8 hours” or “1 week” to mute temporarily, or “Always” to permanently mute notifications from that chat.

You’ll still see a badge on the app icon for all unread messages, and unread messages will still show up in the app. In addition, you’ll still get notifications from muted chats if someone mentions you using the @ symbol.

6
Use Scheduled Summary to Keep Notifications at Bay

Scheduled Summary is a good way to stop notifications from clogging up your iPhone until you have time to deal with them. It allows you to choose which apps will deliver their notifications immediately, and which will be held back until a time of your choosing. If you add less important notifications to the Scheduled Summary, it makes it easier to see and deal with the important ones during the day.

Go to Settings > Notifications. Tap “Scheduled Summary” and toggle it on if it’s not already enabled. Tap a summary time to edit it, or tap “Add Summary” to add further times that you want your summaries to arrive.

To add an app to the scheduled summary, select the app on the main “Notifications” screen. Under “Notification Delivery,” select “Scheduled Delivery.” Notifications for that app will now only arrive at the scheduled times.

7
Turn On Persistent Notifications for Those That Matter Most

One of the biggest problems with having too many notifications is that you end up missing the important ones. If you’ve tried all the methods above, and you still can’t see the wood for the trees, you can try making some notifications persistent.

Persistent notifications are the ones that pop up on the top of your iPhone but then don’t disappear like the others do. They’ll stay stubbornly at the top of the screen until you deal with them or dismiss them, making it much harder to miss important notifications.

Go to Settings > Notifications and select the app you want to display persistent notifications. In the “Alerts” section, tap “Banner Style.” Select “Persistent.”

Banner notifications for the selected app will now remain at the top of the screen until dismissed.

The more apps you install, the more notifications you have to wade through. It can get to the point where there are so many notifications that you miss the truly important ones. Taking control of your notifications is just one way to clear out the clutter on your iPhone.