Silence iMessage Notifications on your Mac

[nerdslife_team]

Hey everyone,

If you’re like me, you probably love how iMessage keeps your conversations synced across all your Apple devices. It’s super convenient, letting you reply from your Mac even if your phone or iPad is in another room. But sometimes, those constant message notifications on your Mac can become a bit much. The good news is, even though there isn’t a simple mute button, there are several effective workarounds to silence iMessage on your macOS device.

Let’s explore a few methods to achieve this:

Method 1: Using Do Not Disturb for Individual Senders

This method is great if you only want to silence notifications from specific people.

1. Launch the Messages app on your Mac, either from the dock or Launchpad.
   

   

2. Select the conversation with the person you want to mute from the sidebar. Then, click on the “Details” button, located at the top-right of the window.
   

   

3. In the overlay menu, check the box next to “Do Not Disturb”.

   

   Note: This will keep “Do Not Disturb” active until you manually turn it off for this contact.

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Method 2: Muting Notifications from System Preferences

If you want to silence all notifications from the Messages app, this is the way to go.

1. Open “System Preferences” from your dock or Launchpad.
   

   

2. Click on “Notifications”.
   

   

3. In the left sidebar, scroll down and select “Messages”. Then, uncheck “Play sound for notifications”.
   

   

4. If you want to disable message notification banners and alerts entirely, select “None” under “Messages alert style”.
   

   

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Method 3: Muting Notifications from Within the Messages App

This method allows you to quickly turn off message notification sounds.

1. Launch the Messages app from your Dock or Launchpad.
   

   

2. Click “Messages” in the menu bar, then select “Preferences.”
   

   

3. In the “Preferences” window, uncheck the box next to “Play sound effects.”
   

   

   Note: This action will mute notification sounds, but you’ll still see notifications in the top right corner.

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Method 4: Using System-Wide Do Not Disturb

This method turns off all notifications on your Mac. This method is less effective than the ones above because it is not specific to the messages app.

1. Launch “System Preferences” from the dock or launchpad.
   

   

2. Click on “Notifications”
   

   

3. Select “Do Not Disturb” in the sidebar, then check the box under “Turn on Do Not Disturb”. Set your preferred timings for it to be active.
   

   

   This will silence all alerts and notifications from all apps until you turn it off.

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Method 5: Blocking Individual Senders

This is the most extreme option, but might be needed in certain situations.

1. Open the Messages app from the dock or Launchpad.
   

   

2. Click on “Messages” in the menu bar, and then select “Preferences.”
   

   

3. In the “Preferences” window, select the “iMessage” tab, and then click “Blocked”.
   

   

4. Click the “+” button in the bottom-left corner of the window, and choose the contact you want to block from the list.