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In this post, we’ll show you how to make Mac notifications stay longer or shorter on screen. Notifications and messages on macOS can be helpful, but if they aren’t important, they can easily get in the way. When you’re working, an alert that goes in and out can make it hard to stay on task. In the new macOS Big Sur update, Apple did make some changes to Notifications, but they can still be annoying at times.
Some alerts will slide in and stay on the screen until you hit the “X” button to get rid of them. macOS can show you two different kinds of notifications: banners and alerts. Alerts stay on your screen until you get rid of them, while ads go away after five seconds. This could be too long or too short. It’s something that may be different for different users. If you want to know more information about this visit official Apple support site.
How to make Mac notifications stay longer or shorter on screen
Change notifications in Settings
- Choose the Apple menu, and select System Preferences
- Click on Notifications
- For each application, click on its name in the list
- Choose whether to Allow Notifications or not
- Choose an alert style, None, Banners, or Alerts
- Decide whether to let the notification play a sound (if available)
Deciding between None, Banners, and Alerts
It won’t take you long to decide if you want None, which means no on-screen alerts at all. The real question is whether you want Banners or Alerts if you do want any. If the alerts slide onto and off of your Mac’s screen, you have a Banner-style one. On the other hand, an Alert pops up and stays there until you click on it.
For each app, choose the one you like best. If you do this, you can stop annoying messages from staying until you stop what you’re doing to get rid of them. Also, if messages from some apps disappear before you’re done reading them, you can change them to alerts.
Limitations of macOS Big Sur
Luckily, you can avoid a lot of trouble if you know the difference between Banners and Alerts and how to change them. Big Sur doesn’t let you dismiss a notification by pressing a key. Instead, you have to move your cursor to the right spot and wait for an X or Clear box to show.
If being able to tap a key to get rid of a notification would be good, so would being able to choose whether the notification asks for an answer or just wants one. Software updates, on the other hand, want you to choose when to do them. Mail, on the other hand, lets you comment or delete right from the notification.
Working around the limitations
One problem with alerts is that when they pop up, they can be distracting. The second thing is that you have to either close them or choose something from a drop-down choice. With an app like Keyboard Maestro, you can set up a keystroke to get rid of a message.
Keyboard Maestro would have to move your cursor to the exact right spot on the screen, wait for the Close or Clear box to show, and then click for you. That would work until you switched Macs, say from an iMac at work to a MacBook Air at home. The cursor would be in a different place because the screen would be smaller, but you could make a second copy of the Keyboard Maestro script.