How to Take Full Control of Your Chromebook Notifications
Notifications are now an integral part of modern life, but they can range from important to irrelevant. The key is to strike the right balance so that you don’t miss alerts you need to see, but aren’t bombarded and distracted by ones you don’t need.
Phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches, smart speakers and more can send us notifications, so it’s worth spending some time setting up these interruptions the way you want – be it on Android , iPhone or any other gadgets. you have.
Here I’m going to dive deeper into managing notifications on a Chromebook. While ChromeOS is essentially just a browser, any website you visit can trigger a notification, as can any Android app you install, as well as ChromeOS itself. Here’s how to stay on top of it all and keep your Chromebook notifications under control.
Website Notifications
Many websites will want to send you alerts about new articles, special offers, and more, and sometimes you’ll see a prompt to allow notifications the first time you visit a site on ChromeOS, just below the address bar—choose Block or Allow in the dialog box as you see fit.
To change site permissions, click the three dots in your browser tab (top right), then Settings . Open the Privacy and Security page, then select Site Settings and Notifications . You will see sites that are allowed to send notifications and sites that are not allowed to send notifications. Click “Add” at the top of any list to enter a new URL if there is a site you specifically want to receive notifications about or don’t want to receive notifications about.
For existing sites in the list, click the three dots next to the site name, then choose Allow , Block , Edit , or Delete —for example, if you need to customize the URL of the site from which you stop receiving notifications. , you can do it here. If you remove a site from any of the lists, you may be prompted to allow notifications from that site again.
At the top of the list, you can set the default behavior for when sites request notifications. You can hide these requests if you want, which means you’ll have to look for them: If a site asks for permission to send alerts, you should see a small bell icon in the address bar that you can click on. .
You can also go to the site’s notification settings using the icon on the far left of the address bar (it looks like two toggle switches) – click it to find the Notifications toggle switch (if notifications are enabled or disabled). Click the Site Settings link to view additional website options. In addition to notification settings, you can also set permissions such as location and camera access, and control how pop-ups and ads are handled.
Application notifications
When it comes to any web or Android apps you decide to install on your Chromebook, notifications for them are handled separately: Tap the time widget in the bottom right corner, then the gear icon to open the main settings panel. . From there, select Security & Privacy on the left.
Select Notifications to see a list of all the apps installed on your Chromebook, whether they’re web apps you’ve pinned to the ChromeOS app drawer or Android apps installed through the Play Store. You’ll see a toggle switch next to each app—use it to control whether the app can send notifications.
At the top of the list is a Do Not Disturb toggle switch, which you can use to turn on or off all notifications, including websites, apps, and system messages sent by ChromeOS. You can still view notifications at any time by tapping the small notifications button to the left of the time and date on the ChromeOS shelf—it will either be labeled with the number of unread notifications or display a Do Not Disturb icon in the form of a circle. or not be there at all (if you have no notifications).
Keep in mind that individual apps may also have their own notification settings, which can be managed within the apps themselves. Instagram, for example, gives you plenty of options to choose what events trigger an alert: On your profile page, tap the three horizontal lines (top right) and then Notifications to make changes.
It’s also worth noting that you can find the Do Not Disturb tile in the panel that appears when you click on the time (in the bottom right corner). Once you’ve adjusted your notification settings for both websites and apps, you’ll be in a better position to see only what you want to see on your Chromebook.