Ever since the Notification Center for OS X arrived, I’ve ignored it.
There. I said it.
In fact, in recent weeks, it’s become downright annoying to me. I’ve wasted so much time clicking through, cancelling out messages. “Why the heck do I feel the need to ‘x-out’ all of these notifications?” Such a waste.
And that’s when it occurred to me:
Get the OS X Notification Center Working for Me!
So then it began.
The first step to not only using this feature, but enjoying it.
To configure the Notification Center and tweaking it to your liking, just open it up:
And click that cool gear icon in the bottom right corner:
And here is where you make your Notifications Center changes (you can also access it in your System Preferences):
These first settings are for the Notification Center itself. If you don’t want notifications popping up in the evenings, etc… you can adjust it here.
But that isn’t where you’ll really get it working for you. You’ll need to go app by app. Sure, it may take a while the first time, but once you get things in order, you’ll be all set.
First, you can adjust the type of alert:
- None
- Banners
- Alerts
Clearly, ‘none’ means there won’t be any notification popping up. Banners will appear briefly and disappear (if you click on it while it’s popping up, it will take you to the app—like a new email). Alerts appear on the screen and will remain until you clear them off.
Before, my FTP app—Transmit—was set to Alerts. This was really annoying when uploading, downloading, and re-uploading files. It’s a matter of taste and how you want your attention taken. A quick blurb, a standing attention getter, or forgo the distraction entirely.
The second set of seeings are a set of checkboxes.
- Show notifications on lock screen – Basically, do you want notifications when your screensaver is on?
- Show in Notification Center – Here’s the money getter. When you click on the Notification Center icon in your menu bar in the upper right corner, this is what you’re going to see listed. Do I want CleanMyMac 2 notifications showing up? No! You only want to select notifications you care about—and you may want to change the number of notifications, too.
- Badge app icon – I love icons, so…yeah… 😉
- Play sound for notifications – Pretty straight forward.
After spending 10 or 15 minutes tweaking and changing these, I’ve found the Notification Center helpful!
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