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Is it possible to change where macOS Notification Center alerts appear on the screen?

They currently appear at the top right of the screen with the menu bar:

Notification Center alert at top right of screen, covering a browser window

Alerts appearing in the top right tend to cover up work I'm doing more often than not. They cover up browser tabs, toolbar icons, and window titles.

I would prefer, say, the bottom right corner of the screen.

If moving the alerts is not possible, is it possible to change the screen on which they appear?

3
  • I logged "FB7496123: Notification Center alerts hide application tabs." Please duplicate!
    – pkamb
    Dec 16, 2019 at 17:27
  • 2
    I think the thing that drives me the most nuts about this is that there is unused space on both sides of the dock. Why can't they use that space for notifications?!
    – Vorticity
    Jan 9, 2020 at 19:04
  • Same, still annoying until now and its already 2022
    – Jovylle
    May 3, 2022 at 6:20

7 Answers 7

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Unfortunately, you can't change the screen position of the Notification Center Alerts and Banners. This is a huge gripe of mine as well, and I highly encourage you to complain about this issue to Apple here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

Hopefully they will one day change this. I also have not been able to find or formulate any hacks.

I, too, am annoyed by it covering up controls in my modeling applications, tabs in my browser, etc.

You can move the Notification Center to another screen, however your entire menu bar goes with it. When you have more than one monitor active, open up System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement. Click and drag the white bar inside one of the squares representing your current primary monitor and drag it to another monitor.

For notifications that don't need immediate attention, consider changing the alert style from Alerts to Banners. Banners are automatically dismissed into the notification center where you can find them later.

Good luck, and keep spreading the word that we need to tell Apple to make this experience better.

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  • 2
    Most annoying is when on a phone call the banner cannot be dismissed. I filed feedback to the link above asking for a hot-corner toggle that allows banners to be moved offscreen temporarily. Perhaps if many others also ask for a hot-corner apple will respond... so please please, everyone, click on the link above and ask for a hot-corner for banners (or the ability to put the banners in any of the 4 corners)
    – Hamid
    Mar 11, 2020 at 15:50
  • This note was Jan 2017 and now is 2020 and that annoying alert it is still there. I don't think Apple will ever change it where the alerts appear on the screen :-( Mar 25, 2020 at 21:19
  • @pkamb any ideas here?
    – Ram
    Aug 27, 2020 at 18:12
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    It's been more than 8 years and this issue still persists. Some times Apple tries to be opinionated jerks who don't listen to their users. They took years to fix that big volume icon on iPhone. Seems they'll take more years to fix this issue. Mar 22, 2021 at 18:55
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Swipe with two fingers on the banner pop up and it will remove it. Not the best answer but convenient for when I need to access a control or tab.

Source: http://www.cultofmac.com/189192/

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  • 1
    Some notifications such as when you're on a phone call are permanent and cannot be swiped away (while the call is in progress). When I'm on a conference call I cannot access the IDE buttons under the banner which is quite annoying...
    – Hamid
    Mar 11, 2020 at 15:26
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    Swipe with fingers? Are we not talking about Macos here? Apr 30, 2020 at 0:43
  • @MarsAndBack On MacBook (Pro) laptops, the touchpad allows these gestures in macOS, so that's likely what they're referring to. Also the Apple Magic Trackpad peripheral for Apple desktops allows this.
    – spex
    Sep 4, 2020 at 16:33
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You can adjust the time the notification is displayed on the screen:

In a terminal window type:

defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime SECONDS

Where SECONDS is the number of seconds the notice will remain visible. Default is 5 seconds.

Log out and in again to activate the setting.

http://www.defaults-write.com/notification-center-change-banners-display-time

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  • 2
    Unfortunately notifications have a habit of appearing right under my cursor as I'm about to click a new tab in a browser so any number of seconds is problematic. But this could be useful for some. Feb 21, 2020 at 11:38
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    Some notifications such as when you're on a phone call are permanent (while the call is in progress). When I'm on a conference call I cannot access the IDE buttons under the banner which is quite annoying...
    – Hamid
    Mar 11, 2020 at 15:26
  • @KatharineOsborne For tabs specifically, you can do Command T to open a new tab. Its unfortunate that Apple has decided how we should be using our computers :-)
    – Eno
    Aug 31, 2020 at 18:14
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Not a very techy guy, and it's my first post here. But I found this and it works. https://github.com/Frostbitee08/NotificationShortcuts

An app that allows you to dismiss notifications with a shortcut! enter image description here

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  • nice this is cool
    – Jovylle
    May 3, 2022 at 6:19
2

I can't find a way to move it, but in searching on github, I found this pretty awesome hidden feature that lets you easily disable notifications.

... you can hold option (alt) and click on the Notification Center icon to disable it

Edit: Option click on the Date & Time in the upper right corner to toggle them on/off.

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  • 1
    It's strange that this answer was downvoted at least once (my upvote took it back to 0), probably since it didn't say how to move the notifications while two other answers also not about how to move them had many upvotes. IMHO, all the answers spoke to the intent of the question to some degree, i.e., how to get them out of the way, especially considering that the accepted (and correct, I believe) answer, "it's not possible", doesn't give much help. All of the answers gave insight into what might help get notifications out of the way, a problem that was mentioned in the original question.
    – Zhora
    Feb 26, 2021 at 20:27
  • @Zhora I didn't downvote, but I literally don't understand what this answer is saying. Anyone can disable notifications through the Settings preferences or by clicking "Do Not Disturb". What's so special about this? Mar 8, 2021 at 14:16
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    @DjangoReinhardt This method is temporary and lets you hide notifications when they're driving you crazy, but doesn't change your general settings. Also, at some point (and I'm not sure what the rules are) macOS turns notifications back to normal. It's pretty nice, really, and I now use it all the time.
    – senortim
    Apr 8, 2021 at 19:14
0

To improve this behavior somewhat, change the alert style from Alerts to Banners.

Banners will at least go away automatically. Alerts will remain on screen until dismissed, blocking anything under them.

enter image description here

I thought I was the only one who found this annoying.

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  • This is already mentioned in the accepted answer
    – spex
    Jun 11, 2022 at 15:41
0

Short answer (TLDR): You can't. Use focus and optional notification settings.

Long answer: I despise the notifications as well. But that's what they are. Nagging little brats. Of course you could move them down all to the right. But that is not possible in early 2023. That position would be the perfect spot. But maybe not, because you might miss something down there. At least for me, that would be the case. So if you really need to focus and notifications are unbearable, QUICKFIX: just select focus for one hour - or longer. You don't like to be distracted right now anyway. Probably not even down to the right. So off they go. ALL of them. For one hour. But refrain from focus for forever unless you really don't want to receive any messages or calls at all.

A longterm solution is to use custom focuses and optional enable notifications for wanted applications.

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