Shutting Up the Bubbles

Of course, little bubbles sliding into the top-right corner of your screen may not always be what you want, especially if you’re trying to beat a deadline.

Dismiss One Bubble

If you’re in a hurry, you can get rid of one of these bubbles with a right-swipe on it (two fingers on a trackpad, one on a Magic Mouse, or just drag it off to the right).

Do Not Disturb (Manual)

But to truly shut up all notifications, turn on Do Not Disturb (Figure 17-2, top).

Tip

The efficiency nut may prefer to simply Option-click the button in your menu bar. It turns gray, indicating that you’ve just stifled all bubbles for the rest of the day (or until you Option-click it again).

Top: If you open the Notification Center and then scroll upward—something you probably wouldn’t ordinarily think to try—this little Do Not Disturb panel heaves into view. Turn it on to stifle all notifications for the rest of the day.Bottom: In Mavericks, you can now set up Do Not Disturb on a schedule, allowing exceptions in case of emergency.

Figure 17-2. Top: If you open the Notification Center and then scroll upward—something you probably wouldn’t ordinarily think to try—this little Do Not Disturb panel heaves into view. Turn it on to stifle all notifications for the rest of the day. Bottom: In Mavericks, you can now set up Do Not Disturb on a schedule, allowing exceptions in case of emergency.

When Do Not Disturb is on, your messages will quietly pile up in the Notification Center (described in a moment); they just won’t pop up on your screen individually as they happen, and they certainly won’t make any noises.

And by the way: OS X automatically shuts up its alert bubbles whenever you’re giving a Keynote presentation from your Mac or are connected to a projector. There’s nothing worse than an audience of 500 witnessing the embarrassing subject lines of your incoming email.

Do Not Disturb (Automatic)

You can stop the bubbles automatically, either according to a daily schedule (like when you’re asleep) or when you’re giving a presentation.

To see this feature, called Do Not Disturb, open System Preferences→Notifications (Figure 17-2, bottom). You’ll find that it offers all kinds of useful options:

  • On a schedule. Here you can specify starting and ending hours for Do Not Disturb to kick in automatically. It’s handy if you’d like the Mac to go dark during the same hours you do every night. (There’s no separate setting for weekends; Do Not Disturb will turn on and off for the same hours every day of the week.)

  • When mirroring to TVs and projectors. If you’re showing an audience something from your Mac, chances are pretty good that you don’t want little notice bubbles to interrupt the show. They’re not only distracting—they could also be personal.

  • Allow FaceTime calls from. When Do Not Disturb is engaged, your Mac won’t ring for FaceTime calls. But what if your child, your boss, or your elderly parent needs you urgently in the middle of the night? Turning off the Mac completely would leave you unreachable in an emergency.

    That’s why Apple built in this option. You’re offered options like Everyone (all calls come through) and Favorites, which permits calls and texts from anybody you’ve designated as a Favorite (VIP) in Mail. Since those are the people you call most often, it’s fairly likely that they’re the most important people in your life.

  • Allow repeated calls. If you turn this on, and somebody tries to call you on FaceTime more than once within three minutes, it will ring through. The idea here is that nobody would call you multiple times unless it was urgent. You certainly wouldn’t want Do Not Disturb to block somebody trying to tell you that there’s been an accident, that you’ve overslept, or that you’ve just won the lottery.

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