Set Up Notifications

What a Calendar or Reminders notification looks like on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch depends on each device’s Notifications settings. In addition, whether a notification appears in Notification Center depends on the settings. Let’s take a quick look at how you can make your Notifications settings work best for you.

On Your Mac

What your notifications ultimately look like—and sound like—depends on the settings in System Preferences > Notifications. After you open this pane, select Calendar or Reminders in the list at the left to view your options at the right. Figure 80 shows the Calendar options, but your choices are identical if you’ve selected Reminders.

**Figure 80:** To change Calendar’s default alerts, go to System Preferences > Notifications and select Calendar in the list.
Figure 80: To change Calendar’s default alerts, go to System Preferences > Notifications and select Calendar in the list.

By default, both Calendar and Reminders notifications are alert style; in other words, they require that you dismiss them, making it difficult to overlook one. You can, however, change that so a banner appears and then disappears—you catch it or you don’t.

Other settings here include:

  • Show Notifications on Lock Screen: Select this to see the app’s notifications on the Lock screen before you log in to your Mac.
  • Show in Notification Center: Make sure this is selected if you want to see recent notifications from the app in Notification Center on a Mac.
  • Badge App Icon: Select this to see how many notifications are pending by looking for a red badge on the app’s icon in the Dock.
  • Play Sound for Notifications: Select this to make your notification include a sound. Typically it’s Basso, but you can change that in System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects. If you’d prefer that your Mac be quiet, make sure this box is deselected.

On Your iOS Device

Each of your iOS devices has its own settings that affect how notifications display on it. For any notification trigger, such as a calendar event giving you a 5-minute warning or a scheduled reminder coming due, you can generally get as many as three alerts, as follows:

  • Sound: A sound plays when the notification is triggered.
  • Alert or Banner: If your device is unlocked, an alert-style notification stays onscreen until you dismiss it. This is helpful when you don’t want to miss something. If you don’t want an alert, you may want a banner instead. Banner-style alerts appear and then disappear. Use this for lower-priority notifications that you don’t mind missing if you’ve set your device down.
  • Badges: Turn this on and a red badge containing a number appears on the Calendar icon in the Home screen; it shows how many notifications you have.

Calendar Notifications

To set your Calendar notifications, tap Settings > Notifications and select Calendar (Figure 81).

**Figure 81:** Tap an event trigger category (at left), such as Upcoming Events, to set it up (right).
Figure 81: Tap an event trigger category (at left), such as Upcoming Events, to set it up (right).

For each category of notification trigger, such as Upcoming Events, some of the current settings appear summarized under each one’s name. To change a category’s notifications, tap it and adjust the switches as follows:

  • Show in Notification Center: To see Calendar notifications in your device’s Notification Center, turn this on. (Flip back to Notification Center in iOS for more.)
  • Sounds: Tap a sound or vibration to select it. You get a preview as you tap.
  • Badge App Icon: Turn this on to see a red badge on the Home screen Calendar icon.
  • Show on Lock Screen: Turn this on to see alerts on the Lock screen. These can be easy to overlook, so don’t rely on them.
  • Show in CarPlay: If you’ve connected your device to your car using Bluetooth, you may see this. (For more about CarPlay see this Apple document.)
  • Banner, Alert, or None? Scroll down to select whether you see a Banner or an Alert‚ or nothing.

What you see with iOS Calendar alerts is what you get. You can’t create a custom alert, as you can on the Mac, to override default settings.

Reminders Notifications

Reminders notifications in iOS work the same way as those in Calendar, described just above. Tap Settings > Notifications > Reminders to see a screen exactly like the one shown at the right in Figure 81, above. Consider picking a different alert sound or vibration (if you use one) for your Reminders alerts to help distinguish them immediately from Calendar’s.

On the Apple Watch

To set up a Watch’s notifications, open the Watch app on your iPhone and tap Notifications > Calendar or Notifications > Reminders. By default, the Watch uses your iPhone’s settings for the Calendar app and the Reminders app (Figure 82).

**Figure 82:** By default, your Watch mirrors your iPhone’s notification settings (left), but you can opt instead for custom settings (right).
Figure 82: By default, your Watch mirrors your iPhone’s notification settings (left), but you can opt instead for custom settings (right).

If you prefer, tap Custom and choose different notification settings for the Watch. For instance, you may want to feel a tap on your wrist (haptic) rather than a sound for upcoming events.

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