How to turn off notifications in Windows

Updated: 12/05/2021 by Computer Hope
Action Center in Windows 10

The Microsoft Windows operating system displays notifications from various applications in the Action Center, alerting users to potential issues, updates, or other important information. These notifications are helpful to some users, but others may not want to see them, especially if multiple notifications are displayed each day. These notifications can be turned off or disabled to prevent them from displaying anymore. Select your version of Windows below and follow the instructions.

Windows 11

  1. Press the Windows key, type Settings, and then press Enter.
  2. In the Settings window, click System in the left navigation menu, if not already selected.

System selector in Windows 11

  1. On the right side of the System settings window, click the Notifications option.

Notifications option in System settings

  1. Click the toggle for the Notifications option to the Off position. Also, uncheck the two bottom check boxes next to "Show me..." and "Get tips..." manually.

Disable all notifications

Windows 10

  1. Click Start and select Settings Settings icon.
  2. In the Settings window, click the System option.

System selector.

  1. In the left navigation pane, click Notifications & actions.

Notifications and actions selector.

  1. Under the Notifications section, click the toggle to the off position for the Get notifications from apps and other senders option.

Turn off notifications in Windows 10

Tip

To turn notifications on, repeat the steps above, and in step 4, click the toggle to the on position.

Windows 8

  1. Press Windows key+C to open the Charms menu.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Click Change PC settings at the bottom of the Settings window.
  4. Under PC settings, click Notifications.
  5. Under the Notifications section, click the toggle switch to the off position for the Show app notifications option.
Tip

To turn notifications on, repeat the steps above, and in step 5, click the toggle to the on position.

Windows 7

With Windows 7, to turn off notifications, disable Action Center.

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Click the System or System and Security option.
  3. Find the Action Center entry and select Off in the drop-down list to the right of that entry.
Tip

To enable Action Center and turn notifications on again, repeat the steps above, and in step 3, select On in the drop-down list.

Windows Vista

In Windows Vista, notifications are part of the Security Center and are turned off through that utility.

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Click the Security option.
  3. In the Security window, click the Security Center option.
  4. In the Security Center window, click the Change the way Security Center alerts me link.
  5. To turn off notifications, but leave the Security Center icon displayed in the Windows notification area, click the Don't notify me, but display the icon option.

    To turn off notifications and hide the Security Center icon, click the Don't notify me and don't display the icon option.
Tip

To turn notifications on again, repeat the steps above, and in step 5, click the Yes, notify me and display the icon option.