• iPhone notifications appear on your Mac when you first set up iPhone mirroring.

• Turn off notifications on your iPhone or Mac to prevent unnecessary alerts from appearing on your Mac while you work.

• Some notifications are genuinely useful, like apps or services that aren’t part of the macOS ecosystem, while others can be unnecessarily distracting (like mobile games).

Thanks to a new feature called iPhone Mirroring, your Mac can now receive notifications from your iPhone. However, without setting them up, they can become overwhelming. Here’s how to manage them from your Mac in macOS Sequoia.

Customize iPhone notifications on your Mac

Notifications from your iPhone will automatically be enabled on your Mac when you start using iPhone Mirroringwhich means you don’t need to touch anything to get started. You need to make sure that your iPhone and Mac are running iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia and that your phone is turned on, not off. However, you don’t need to have your phone near your Mac or unlocked to receive its notifications.

If you want to disable or change the feature, go to your Mac’s Settings, scroll down and click Notifications. From there, click on the Allow notifications from iPhone section, and then you can turn the feature on or off.

Additionally, you can enable or disable the notification sound if you want to control it here.

Editing incoming notifications

Like iOS, unless you choose which apps can send notificationsyou will receive everyone who passes. Fortunately, on iOS or macOS, you can select which apps can or cannot send notifications from your iPhone to your Mac.

Configuring Notifications on Your iPhone

Although this feature is primarily for Macs, you can change which apps send notifications to your desktop from your iPhone.

To do this, go to the Settings app and then to the Notifications tab. Once there, select the app you want or don’t want to display notifications on your Mac.

You’ll see a toggle for Show on Mac under the Alerts section when you’ve selected one. Enabling it will show notifications from apps on your Mac, but disabling it will prevent them.

If you already have disabled notifications from an app on your iPhoneyou will not be able to view them on your Mac.

Setting Up Notifications on Your Mac

To change the same feature on your Mac, go to the Settings app and scroll down to the Notifications tab. Once you’re there, select the apps you want to receive notifications from.

If you’ve turned off an app’s notifications on your iPhone, you won’t be able to enable or change its notification preferences on your Mac.

Additionally, if specific app notifications are disabled on your iPhone, a Mirroring disabled from your iPhone message will appear and the option to enable them will be grayed out.

Why should you change your notification preferences

Adding iOS notifications to macOS notifications can be overwhelming. For this reason, it’s a good idea to decide which iOS apps you want to receive notifications from and which you don’t. Apps on both of your devices, like Messages, won’t send you double notifications, but it’s best to leave some alerts mirrored on your iPhone when you’re not busy on your Mac.

For example, being notified when someone activates your Ring doorbell is useful because that ecosystem isn’t part of HomeKit and won’t initially appear in your Mac’s notifications. On the other hand, notifications on your Candy Crush recording can be very useful to stay on your iPhone.

Limiting the number of cross-platform notifications helps you avoid getting overwhelmed by unnecessary notifications. It also helps you stay focused on the task at hand on your Mac. If you have a cell phone, consider also limit Apple Watch notifications so your wrist isn’t constantly buzzing.

Remember that if you delete all iPhone notifications from your Mac, they will also be deleted from your iPhone. This helps you stay organized and prevents you from being ambushed by duplicate notifications.

Mirroring notifications from your iPhone to your Mac is a great addition, especially for apps that aren’t yet compatible with macOS. But if you don’t configure which ones you want to display on both devices, you risk being inundated with notifications you’d be better off without.