How to Create a Custom Focus Mode on Mac

Do Not Disturb is all-or-nothing. A custom Focus mode is surgical: silence everything except the three people and two apps that genuinely matter for deep work, run it on a schedule, and flip it on from the menu bar. Setup takes five minutes.

Create the Focus

1. Open System Settings → Focus.
2. Click Add Focus (the + button), then choose Custom. (Apple's presets — Work, Personal, Sleep, and friends — live here too if one fits.)
3. Give it a name ("Writing", "Deep Work"), pick a color and a symbol, and create it.

The name and symbol aren't cosmetic: they're how you'll recognize it in Control Center and how the status appears to people who message you, so make it say something.

Decide who and what gets through

Open your new Focus and work through its options:

• Allowed People — notifications from these people ring through; everyone else waits. You can also choose the opposite approach and silence a specific list while allowing the rest — pick whichever list is shorter.
• Allowed Apps — same idea for apps. Calendar and your team chat might make the cut; the socials don't.
• Time-sensitive notifications — a toggle that lets apps flagged as urgent (timers, reminders, security alerts) break through even when the app isn't on the list. Leave it on until it annoys you.

Everything silenced isn't lost — it piles up quietly in Notification Center for when you surface.

Schedules and automation

In the Focus's settings, use Set a Schedule — for example 9:00–11:30, weekdays. The Focus turns itself on and off; the menu bar shows its symbol while active. For ad-hoc sessions, trigger it manually: click Control Center → Focus, click your mode, and it runs until you turn it off — or click the small options area to run it for 1 hour or until this evening. Those duration options are the sleeper feature: a Focus you can't forget to turn off is one you'll actually use.

Filters, sync, and status

• Focus filters — the deepest cut: per-app behavior while the Focus runs. A filter can limit Safari to one Tab Group, Mail and Calendar to work accounts, or flip the system to Dark Mode. Add them from Focus Filters inside the Focus's settings.
• Share across devices — the main Focus pane has a toggle that mirrors your Focus state to your iPhone, iPad, and Watch. Turn your Focus on at the desk and the phone shuts up too. Turn the toggle off if you want the Mac to go quiet independently.
• Focus status — per Focus, you can let messaging apps tell contacts you have notifications silenced, which invites their "notify anyway" only when it's genuinely urgent.

To remove an experiment, open the Focus and click Delete Focus at the bottom — presets aside, custom modes delete cleanly, and turning one off mid-run is always just another click in Control Center.

Triggers beyond the clock

Schedules aren't limited to times of day. Adding a schedule to a Focus also offers location triggers (on when you arrive at the office, off when you leave — driven by Location Services) and app triggers: the Focus switches on while a chosen app is frontmost and off when you leave it. The app trigger is the underrated one — attach your "Writing" Focus to your writing app and focus management stops being a decision entirely; open the app, the notifications stop, close it, they return. Combine one automatic trigger with the manual Control Center toggle for exceptions and you'll rarely think about Focus again — which is the whole point.

Put the Focus one keystroke away

If you flip the same mode on several times a day, skip Control Center: give Do Not Disturb (or any Focus, via Shortcuts) a key combo — here's how to set a keyboard shortcut for Do Not Disturb.