Per app: Show Previews → Always, When Unlocked, or Never. The alert still arrives; what it says does not appear on a locked screen.
System tower · floor
How to turn off notifications on iPhone without losing them
The switch exists and it is easy to find. But how to turn off notifications on iphone and “stop being interrupted by this app” are two different requests, and only the first is what the switch does. Apple documents three lighter settings for the second, and they are worth seeing before you reach for the blunt one.
Apple documents both routes and they reach the same switch. The first is where you go if you are
thinking about an app; the second if you are thinking about the noise. And one line worth knowing before you go looking: “If Notifications doesn’t appear, the app
might not be able to send notifications.” An app with no such screen is not hiding it.The switch itself, by two doors
Settings › Apps › the app › Notifications › Allow Notifications
Settings › Notifications › the app › Allow Notifications
That is the blunt end, and for a game that has started sending you offers it is the right answer. For a messaging app you actually use, it is not — turning it off means finding out later, on your own initiative, that somebody needed you. The three settings below keep the message and remove the thing you did not want.
Scheduled Summary: choose times of day, choose which apps, and they arrive together instead of one at a time — Apple’s stated purpose is “to minimize interruptions from notifications throughout the day”.
A Focus. And the important detail: Apple says it “delays the delivery of notifications”, and you can schedule a summary of the ones you missed. Delayed, not discarded.
Three options, per app, and the middle one answers a version of this problem the switch cannot.
The banner still appears; the message inside it does not, until the phone recognises you. Apple notes what previews can contain — “text (from
Messages and Mail) and invitation details (from Calendar)” — which is precisely the material you
would rather not have on a screen lying face-up on a table.Show Previews: Always · When Unlocked · Never
The second of the three is the one that changes a day rather than a screen. A Scheduled Summary collects notifications from the apps you choose and delivers them at times you choose, which turns a stream into an edition. Apple’s setup is deliberately granular: you schedule the times, then go through the app list — sorted A to Z — and pick which apps join the summary and which keep arriving immediately. The point is that it is not all or nothing: the two people who must reach you can stay in the stream while everything else waits for six o’clock.
The third deserves one clarification, because it is the difference between a feature and a risk. Apple’s wording is that a Focus “delays the delivery of notifications” — and that you can “schedule a time to receive a summary of the notifications you missed”. Delayed, then delivered. That is not the same as switching an app off, and knowing it is what makes a Focus usable during work rather than something to be nervous about.
And a gesture that is not written anywhere on the screen it applies to. The Lock Screen can
show notifications three ways — Count, Stack or List — chosen in Settings ›
Notifications. But Apple also gives a shortcut: “When notifications arrive, you can change the
layout by pinching the notifications on the Lock Screen.” Count is the quietest of the three: a number rather than a pile. For a phone that feels busy
without any app being at fault, it is a smaller change than turning anything off, and it is two
fingers away.
One practical order for anybody who has arrived here at the end of a noisy day. Start with Show Previews → When Unlocked, because it costs nothing and fixes the version of this problem that is really about privacy. Then set a Scheduled Summary for the apps you read but never urgently. Then, and only then, turn off the ones that are left. In that order the apps you finally silence are the ones that survived two gentler questions, rather than whichever ones happened to buzz last.
The floors below take it four ways: the switch itself, hiding what a notification says, batching them, and the difference between silenced and delayed.
Where to start
Four ways in.
- “This app has to stop.”
- Start at the switch
- “I mind people reading them.”
- Go to hiding the contents
- “It is the constant interrupting.”
- That is batching them
- “Will I lose what arrives?”
- That is silenced or delayed
The switch
Two routes to the same setting, and a line that tells you when an app simply has no notifications to turn off.
Allow NotificationsWhere the switch lives, by both of the doors Apple documents.Being built
An app with no such screenApple’s own explanation, which is not that the setting is hidden.Being built
Sounds and badgesThe parts you can remove without removing the notification.Being built
Hiding the contents
Three options per app, and the middle one is what most people mean. The alert arrives; the words in it wait until the phone knows you.
Show PreviewsAlways, When Unlocked, Never — and what a preview can contain.Being built
A phone on the tableThe situation this setting is for, and what else is visible from a metre away.Being built
Per app, not per phoneOverriding the global setting where it matters and leaving it where it does not.Being built
Batching them
A stream turned into an edition. Apple’s own purpose for it is minimising interruptions, and the setup is deliberately app by app.
Scheduled SummaryTimes you pick, apps you pick, and everything else still arriving at once.Being built
Which apps to includeThe A to Z list, and the small number that should stay in the stream.Being built
The Lock Screen layoutCount, Stack or List — and the pinch that switches between them.Being built
Silenced or delayed
The distinction that decides whether a Focus is a tool or a risk. Apple says delivery is delayed, and that the missed ones can be summarised.
Do Not DisturbOne of six Focus options — and the four things that switch it back on by itself.Open this floor →
A summary of what you missedScheduling the catch-up, so that silence is not the same as loss.Being built
Letting people throughSilence with two exceptions, rather than silence or nothing.Being built
What this tower will not do
It will not treat turning an app off as the default answer. Apple documents three lighter settings, and one of them is usually what was wanted.
It will not describe a Focus as switching notifications off. Apple’s word is delayed, and the missed ones can be summarised.
And it will not suggest a third-party app for this. Everything on this floor is one screen deep in Settings, and one of the useful parts is a gesture rather than a setting. What holds instead is simple: the two routes to the switch, the Show Previews options, the Scheduled Summary and the note that a Focus delays delivery are quoted from Apple’s own documentation, listed below.
Where this page got its facts
- Apple Support — Turn notifications on or off for a specific app on your iPhone (the Settings › Apps route to Allow Notifications, and the note that if Notifications does not appear the app might not be able to send them). Published date given on the page: 7 April 2026 — support.apple.com, read 22 August 2026.
- Apple — iPhone User Guide, Change notification settings on iPhone (the Count, Stack and List layouts and the pinch gesture, the Settings › Notifications route to Allow Notifications, the Show Previews options Always, When Unlocked and Never with what a preview can contain, the Scheduled Summary setup with its stated purpose and its A to Z app list, and the statement that a Focus delays the delivery of notifications with a summary of missed ones) — support.apple.com, read 22 August 2026.
Written by Alberto Gulotta
Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.
Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.
Written on 22 August 2026.
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