How to set up Do Not Disturb on a Mac

Do Not Disturb — called Focus in macOS 12 and later — silences notification banners and sounds without turning them off permanently. It's ideal for meetings, deep-work sessions, or winding down at night. You can turn it on in seconds from the menu bar, or configure a schedule so it runs automatically.

Turn it on right now

The quickest way: click the date and time in the top-right corner of the menu bar. A Focus panel drops down. Click Do Not Disturb and choose a duration:

• 1 hour — turns off automatically after 60 minutes
• Until this evening — stays on until around 6 PM (macOS decides the cutoff)
• Until tomorrow — stays on until the next morning

You can also reach it from Control Center (the two-toggle icon in the menu bar) → Focus → Do Not Disturb. The effect is identical. When active, a crescent moon icon appears in the menu bar. Click it to dismiss Do Not Disturb before your chosen time.

Set a recurring schedule

For automatic daily activation — overnight, during lunch, during your writing block — set up a schedule in System Settings:

1. Open System Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb.
2. Click Add Schedule (or the + button if you see a schedule list).
3. Choose a trigger type:
   • Time — set specific start and end times, and which days of the week to apply.
   • Location — activates when you arrive at a place (home, office, etc.).
   • App — activates automatically when a specific app is in the foreground (useful for Keynote during presentations).

You can have multiple schedules. They stack without conflict — if two schedules overlap, Do Not Disturb stays on until both have ended.

Allow calls and key contacts through

Going completely dark isn't practical if you need to be reachable for urgent calls. In System Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb, click People to configure exceptions:

• Allow calls from — choose Everyone, Contacts, Favorites, or No One. "Favorites" is the most useful option: only people you've starred in Contacts can ring through.
• Repeat Callers — if someone calls twice within three minutes, their second call breaks through regardless of the People setting. This catches genuine emergencies without opening the floodgates.
• Allow messages from — same options as calls. Messages that break through will still show a banner even while Do Not Disturb is active.

Allow certain apps through

Alongside People exceptions, you can whitelist specific apps. In System Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb → Apps, click the + button and add any apps whose notifications should still appear. A common setup: allow your calendar app and your company's paging system, but mute everything else.

App exceptions work for notification banners only — sounds are still suppressed unless you've configured that separately in the app's notification settings.

Share your Focus status

When Do Not Disturb is active, iMessage can automatically show your contacts a note saying "Has notifications silenced" under your name in a conversation thread. This prevents people from worrying why you haven't responded. Toggle it in System Settings → Focus → Focus Status → Share Focus Status.

You control this per-Focus mode. If you'd rather keep your status private during personal focus time but share it during work hours, set it up on each mode individually.

The menu bar crescent moon icon

Whenever any Focus mode is active, macOS shows a small icon in the menu bar — a crescent moon for Do Not Disturb, or a person silhouette for custom Focus modes. Clicking the icon opens the Focus panel so you can turn it off immediately without navigating through System Settings. It's the fastest exit if a meeting ends early or you want to check notifications quickly.

If you find the icon distracting, you can hide it: in System Settings → Focus, there's an option to suppress the menu bar icon for each Focus mode.