Get notifications you want

Get more of what you want...

Notifications from your favorite apps and games. Install your favorite apps and games, then set up notifications for them. You can usually do this in an app's settings menu. Microsoft Store has oodles of apps, including social networking, messaging, news, and hit games.

High-priority notifications. Put notifications you care about most at the top of action center, whether they're messaging notifications or alerts from a game you can't stop playing.

• Top priority. Make your favorite app's notifications top priority, and you'll always see its new notifications at the top of action center. Go to Settings > System > Notifications & actions‌ , under Get notifications from these senders select the app, and then under Priority of notifications in action center select Top.

• High priority. For important apps that didn't make top priority, give them VIP status and see their notifications above other, normal priority apps. In action center, right-click (or press and hold) the app, and then select Make this group high priority.

Personalized notifications from Cortana. Have you met Cortana? She's your digital agent in Windows 10 who can ping you when it's time to head to work, remind you to pick up eggs at the grocery store, show you breaking news, and more. Go to Cortana's Notebook and add info that's relevant to you. See Make Cortana yours to learn how.

Notifications from your phone. When you're on your PC, Cortana can forward your phone's notifications, letting you know if you get phone calls, text messages, low battery warnings, and so on.

To set up the connection, open Cortana on your PC, go to Settings , and then turn on Send notifications and information between devices. After a few minutes, you should receive a notification on your PC asking you to confirm that your phone is a trusted device. Once trusted, notifications will start flowing. (Available for Android and Windows 10 Mobile phones.)

Customized quick actions. In action center, you'll see all available quick actions at the bottom. Collapse them to see only your top picks. To rearrange them and customize your top quick actions, go to Settings > System > Notifications & actions‌ .

...and less of what you don't

Change any of the following settings at any time in Settings > System > Notifications & actions‌ . For app-specific settings, select the app under Get notifications from these senders.

• Needy apps. Getting too many notifications from a particular app? Change Number of notifications visible in action center.

• Pesky pop-ups. Those notifications that pop up on your screen when a notification first arrives are called banners. Tired of seeing them for certain apps? Turn off Show notification banners and they'll skip your desktop and go directly to action center.

• Keep it quiet. To stop distractions, press and hold (or right-click) action center in your taskbar, then select Turn on quiet hours. This sends notifications, reminders, alarms, and VoIP calls directly to action center until you turn it off.

• Notifications in action center. If a notification banner pops onto your screen and you don't select it, it will go to action center for you to review later. If you only want to see the pop-ups, turn off Show notifications in action center.

• Private notifications in public. Some notifications are for your eyes only. To keep them from showing during a presentation, turn on Hide notifications when I'm duplicating my screen. Also, to keep them from showing on your lock screen when you're not logged in, turn off Show notifications on the lock screen.

• Notifications from one app. If you're tired of seeing notifications from a particular app, turn them off. Under Get notifications from these senders, turn off the toggle next to the app. (You can always turn them back on if you miss them.)

If you ever decide you want complete solitude, you can turn off all notifications on your PC by turning off Get notifications from apps and other senders.