Receiving too many alerts at certain times of the day can be counterproductive. We explain how to better stop and manage notifications on your Apple Watch so you don’t miss the most important ones.
Does the amount of notifications you get on your Apple Watch bothers you? Do not worry. In this article we show you how to better manage your watch so as not to miss important notifications and silence those secondary for you.
And it is that sometimes you do not want to miss anything, but probably, you do not want to become a protagonist in those moments when you meet with clients or with the board of directors of your company.
The great challenge, without a doubt, is to find the perfect balance between what is really important in your life and what you should be alert to. We show you how to optimize your watch’s smart notifications.
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Table of Contents
Before you start trimming your notification settings, remember a key fact: By design, Apple Watch doesn’t provide a notification if it detects that you’re currently using iPhone. This is to prevent you from receiving notifications from different fronts.
Delete notifications from iPhone and Apple Watch
Let’s start with those less desirable. And it is that by default, Apple Watch applications reflect the notifications of your iPhone. In other words, if you’ve spent a bit of time managing the iPhone’s, the clock should suit your preferences.
In practice, the Apple Watch does not behave like this. While the iPhone spends a lot of time in our pocket and we do not notice the alerts, the Apple Watch is in sight and in direct contact with our wrist.
This means that any small alert or vibration that you receive on your Apple Watch, means that you occasionally divert your attention from what you are doing to check the clock screen. It is overwhelming.
For this reason, the best option is to start by removing unwanted notifications from iPhone to get rid of them completely. Follow these steps:
- Open ‘Settings’ on the iPhone synced with your Apple Watch.
- Click on the ‘Notifications’ option.
- Select an app that bothers you on the clock and uncheck ‘Allow notifications’.
- These applications will no longer bother you on the Apple Watch or your iPhone.
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Change notification settings for each app
Open the Watch application on your iPhone, make sure you are in the ‘My Watch’ tab (select this in the lower menu bar) and click on ‘Notifications’. Below the top two switches, you will see that the apps are divided into two groups.
Complex configurations
In the first group are all the pre-installed apps created by Apple, with unique or complex notification settings of some kind. Tap on an app and you’ll see a menu page with additional options.
Sometimes this is a one-time setting – maps, for example, only allow you to have turn alerts as a notification, while heart rate only offers notifications when your rate is high.
The activity has five separate switches for its reminders, challenges, and other types of alerts. Some other apps on this list offer the ability to choose between ‘Mirror and Custom’ settings.
The first one simply reflects the notifications on your iPhone: if you receive a notification on your iPhone, you also receive it on your Apple Watch. It is the default. Custom settings, on the other hand, allow you to set a different notification scheme than the clock.
On and off settings
For applications in the second group, there is no menu page to click on; there is only a simple on / off switch. If it’s on (green), the app will mirror iPhone notifications to the watch. If it’s off, it won’t.
Some of Apple’s own applications appear here, such as Health, Music, or Notes, but mostly it is made up of third-party software.
Set notifications as ‘VIP only’
It is worth choosing Mail for special attention because its configuration includes an attractive option: show only the notifications of the people on your VIP list. This way, the Apple Watch won’t notify you unless someone important sends you an email.
To do this, follow the steps indicated below:
- Open the ‘Apple Watch’ app.
- Tap on ‘My watch> Notifications’.
- Click on ‘Mail’.
- Choose the ‘Custom’ option.
- Scroll down to alert settings.
- Tap on iCloud and uncheck ‘Show iCloud alerts’. (Do the same with any other main account).
- Tap on VIP and make sure ‘Show VIP alerts’ is enabled.
- Activate or deactivate ‘Sound and vibration as you prefer.
More notification settings
There are more notification settings that are worth exploring. To do this, click on ‘My watch> Notifications’ and use the following.
- Notification indicator. Disable this option to remove the red dot that appears on your watch face when you have a slope.
- Notification privacy. Activate this and you will no longer see details in a notification; you will have to open the application. This prevents close people from reading the first line of your text messages.
- Do not disturb. Tap on ‘My watch> General> Do not disturb’ and choose if you want to mirror the iPhone (the default). If you do not mirror the iPhone, you can activate ‘Do not disturb’ separately on the watch through the ‘Control Center’.
- Clear all notifications. Swipe down from the top of the Apple Watch screen to see all notifications. Take a deep pressure to access the ‘Erase All’ option.
