Set Focus Modes To Turn On Automatically

Focus modes, also called Do Not Disturb, are useful to quiet notifications while in meetings or trying to concentrate. But it is hard to remember to turn them on and off. To make them more useful, you can set Focus modes to turn on automatically when using specific apps.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can have Focus Modes automatically quiet Notifications when you're busy.
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So Focus Modes, also known as Do Not Disturb, are useful when you want to have Notifications stop while you are doing something important. Like giving a presentation, doing an online meeting, or maybe playing a game. Now you can turn on Focus Modes by going to the Control Center here and then there is Focus. If you click it it will show you the Focus Modes that you have available. Then you can select one to turn it On. That, of course, is if you remember to do this. The problem is we often forget to turn on Do Not Disturb before we're doing something like an online presentation and even more common than that is we forget to turn it Off when we're done. 
Fortunately you can set Focus Modes to turn On and turn Off automatically under certain conditions like depending upon which app you are actually using. So, go to System Settings in Ventura, though you can do the same thing using System Preferences in Monterey. It is just going to look a lot different. Then once you are here in System Settings go to Focus. Now you're going to see the Focus Modes you have and you can add more. Let's create a new one. Let's say this is a Focus Mode that we want to use when we're giving a presentation. So I'll select Custom and I'll call this one Presentation. Then I can pick an icon if I want. So maybe something like this and a color and Okay. Now the next thing we want to do is maybe select what is allowed to happen. Now probably during a presentation you want nothing. But if you want to allow  certain people to be able to contact you and you'll see those Notifications you can. You can also allow certain apps to send you Notifications if you want. In Focus Filters, here at the bottom, you can click Add Filter. You can even get down to the level of specific calendars in the Calendar App, specific email accounts, and Messages conversations. Even Tab Groups in Safari that are visible. 
Let's say you want absolutely no Notifications while you are giving your presentation. So now the problem is how do you remember to turn On this Focus Mode just before you start the presentation. Well, you don't have to. Say you give your presentation using Keynote. You can click here to Add Schedule. Now you would think, Add Schedule, that's got nothing to do with automatically figuring out when you're using Keynote. But, in fact, there are three different functions in here. Time, which makes sense for the schedule part. But you could also do Location and by App. So Location would actually use your GPS location, like for instance, figuring out where you are according to your WiFi network. So you can tell whether you are at work or at home. App though is just going to look at which app is running in the foreground. So you can select this and then you can search for an app. You could say Keynote. When I'm using Keynote I want this Focus Mode to turn On. So now let's close System Settings and give this a try. 
I'm going to run Keynote and look what happens when I launch it. If you look at the upper right hand corner you'll see a Notification telling you that Presentation Mode is On. Sure enough if I go into Control Center here and I look in the Focus Modes I can see Presentation Mode there. You could see that I'm in some Focus Mode because the time and date here are grayed out. If you want to get rid of that, by the way, and not have it be grayed out you can always drag this into the Menu Bar. When you do the time is no longer the indicator for the Focus Mode. Instead you have a separate icon here. So now I can click here on the icon and I can see that Presentation Mode is On. That is, of course, because I'm running Keynote.  
Now what if I were to quit Keynote. You'll see that the Presentation Mode goes Off. Sure enough if I look here at the icon you can see it changes to the default Do Not Disturb icon but grayed out showing me that none of the modes are in use. 
Now I can still switch this mode on manually by selecting it here. I can select if For 1 Hour or Until This Evening. I can, of course, turn it Off manually as well. So let's say you go into Keynote and you can see how it turns it On. But I'm actually just working on the presentation. So I want to turn this Off now. So I will and you can see it will obey my manual command there and I'll get my Notifications while I'm working by myself on my presentation. 
So you could also set this up for multiple apps. So let's add a new Focus here. I'll say Online Meeting and then I'll set this up with an icon like that and a color. Now I've got this. Now I'm going to Set Schedule here. Go to App and I'm going to look for Zoom. I'm going to add that. But sometimes I also do meetings using FaceTime. So I'm going to select another one. Select that. Now you can see I've got both. So now when either of these is at the front it will automatically turn On. When I'm done with my meeting, say I quit the Zoom app, it will automatically turn the Focus Mode Off. This might be a good example of where you want to allow some people or some apps. Like, for instance, you may want to still get Notification from your co-workers while you are in a meeting so somebody can send you a message through a back channel. 
Another thing to note here is this setting. Share Across Devices. When you use this anything you setup here in your Mac is also going to work on your other devices using your same Apple ID. So your iPad and your iPhone will obey these as well. So if you go into a Zoom meeting on your Mac your iPhone will also use the Online Meeting Focus Mode. So it will silence the calls and messages there while you're in that meeting. 
Now there is an order to these. So for instance if you were to add a Focus and then for that Focus set a schedule, say have it turn on at 9:00 a.m. and turn off at 5:00 p.m., that Focus Mode would go on at that time. Then if you were to use an app to say trigger your Online Meeting Mode that would turn on. As soon as you quit that app it would go back to this Mode here. There are also a couple of special triggers you can use. A special Gaming Mode actually works with the wireless controller. So if you have a game controller, when that is connected then it will go into this Gaming Focus Mode, if you have it enabled. You can click here and turn that Off if you want. Sleep Mode will work with the Sleep Function on your iPhone. So if you have Sleep setup on your iPhone and you are using Share Across Devices here, then you'll go into Sleep Mode not just on your iPhone but also here on your Mac. 
This system isn't perfect. For instance I showed you how you could just be using Keynote to edit your presentation instead of actually using it. Or perhaps you forget to Quit Zoom when the meeting is over. So you still got to kind of pay attention to what Focus Mode you're in. But this should, at least, cut down on the number of times you are not in a Focus Mode and you should be or you're in the wrong Focus Mode. 
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Set Focus Modes To Turn On Automatically”

Jimmy Marchini

1 year ago

I need to know if every possible notification sound can be shut down, emergency or other wise. In "Do No Disturb" I still get the occasional alert playing over bluetooth. This occurred with Airplane mode on, Do Not Disturb on, Mute set, and the same on my Apple Watch.

Gary Rosenzweig

Jimmy: Apps can play their own sounds outside of system notifications. That may be the case in that situation. See if the app has some controls for that.

Bart Pulverman

At 1:16 into the presentation you described how to go into the Focus mode settings on Monterey (v12.6) which I am using on my 27" mid-2017 iMac. When I followed your instructions I found that the only things that are not greyed out are the "Show in Menu Bar" checkbox and the selector for "when active" or "always" and there is no place to select specific apps as you describe. Did you lead us into a dead end or am I missing something?

Bart: I don't have Monterey available to me right now (holiday week here in the US) but just like with Ventura you use the "schedule" setting to choose an app. But it sounds like you are maybe in the wrong place altogether, maybe looking at Menu Bar and Control Center settings?

Tom Craig

Thanks again, Gary, for explaining a subject that has been confusing and frustrating for me. Now to use your good instruction to get the desired results!

Comments Closed.

Set Focus Modes To Turn On Automatically

Comments: 5 Responses to “Set Focus Modes To Turn On Automatically”

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