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Our trusted gadgets are in constant communication with us, ringing and buzzing whenever friends want to chat, when new shows arrive on Netflix, or when coworkers send crucial memes over Slack. These audible alerts may be useful during the day, but they're not welcome at night. You don't want your sleep interrupted by breaking news stories, messages from coworkers on the other side of the world, or an update on your podcast download queue.
Here's how to quiet the gadgets you might have within earshot of your bed until the morning comes.
Silence Your Apps
Before you get to fiddling with your smartphone's settings, look through the apps you've got installed—particularly if one or two keep interrupting your slumber. Tweaking the notification settings on these apps can be more effective than silencing your phone altogether.
Slack is a good example, if folks from work are disturbing you across multiple channels and time zones. Set a quiet time for Slack alerts. In the app, tap on your profile icon and choose Pause notifications. Pick one of the suggested times or create a custom timeframe. To further tweak your alerts and create a daily schedule, go back to your profile and click Notifications.
Maybe you've got group chats that often stay active way past your bedtime; most messaging apps let you mute individual threads. In Messenger from Meta, for instance, open a conversation, then tap its name at the top. Click on the bell that says Mute to stop receiving notifications. (Most other apps work the same way; tap around.) Google Messages and Apple's Messages both let you mute or silence new message notifications from group chats and individuals.
If TikTok keeps you awake at night—before it potentially gets banned in the United States—go to your profile and click the three lines at the top right of the screen. Open Settings and privacy, then Notifications. Here you can toggle alerts off from direct messages and create a notification schedule.
You might find it more useful to mute all the notifications on your phone overnight, but if it's just one or two apps causing you problems, app-by-app settings might be the way to go. It means notifications from other apps—such as incoming phone calls—can carry on as normal.
Shut Up Your Smartphone
Both iOS and Android have a Do Not Disturb mode that will silence all incoming notifications on your phone—with some exceptions, if needed. It's perhaps the easiest and most effective way of stopping your smartphone from waking you up unnecessarily halfway through the night.
On an iPhone, from Settings, go to Focus and click Do Not Disturb. On this page, you can pick apps and people to exclude from the mode and create a daily schedule. Sleep is another Focus mode worth checking out that can align with your bedtime schedule.
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Over on Android, open Settings and pick Notifications. Then toggle Do Not Disturb on. Here, you can set specific hours when Do Not Disturb kicks in automatically and manage what’s allowed through when DND mode is active.
On top of the standard Do Not Disturb settings, you've also got some extra tools. In the case of iOS, from Settings, pick Screen Time then Downtime. You're able to set certain hours at night when only certain apps will work, notifications and all. It's a good option when you need something more granular than Do Not Disturb.
On Android, meanwhile, the equivalent feature is called Bedtime mode. Open up your Settings, then choose Digital Wellbeing and parental controls and Bedtime mode. It can essentially turn your phone screen gray for the specified “snoozing” hours, as well as apply the default Do Not Disturb settings at the same time. For Samsung smartphones though, the sleep feature is available inside of the Modes and Routines app.
Keep Your Smart Speaker Quiet
For the majority of the time, your smart speakers won't make a sound unless they're spoken to. They're not suddenly going to interrupt your sleep unless you've set a timer or an alarm, and you don't have to worry about them piping up with the latest news headlines in the early hours.
Both Google's and Amazon's smart speakers let you block alerts and have special modes where they'll respond more quietly to voice prompts. Those quiet modes can be handy if you don't want to disturb the other people in your home.
For Google speakers, open the Google Home app and tap on the speaker in question. Then tap the Settings cog in the bottom-right corner and click Digital wellbeing. Here, you can schedule downtime routines for your smartspeaker. When this is enabled, the speaker won’t play music or respond to vocal commands. Your alarms and timers will still work as normal.
With Echo speakers, open the Alexa app on your phone, tap Devices, then Echo & Alexa and the name of your speaker. From there, you can tap Do Not Disturb, which you can either turn on manually or set on a schedule. Any reminders, timers, or alarms will still give you an alert in this mode.
To enable Whisper Mode on an Alexa to make audio responses quieter, just say, "Alexa, turn on Whisper Mode." You can also do so in the Alexa app under More, Settings, and Voice Responses. Then choose the Whisper Mode toggle to activate it.
The Apple HomePod doesn't have a Do Not Disturb equivalent or night mode of any description, but as with all of these speakers, you can make it quieter. Just tell Siri to lower the volume or to set it to a number between 1 and 100. You can also use the volume controls on the top of the device.
Mute Your Laptop or Desktop
Sleeping next to a laptop or desktop is less common than sleeping next to a phone, but it may be hard to avoid for people with a computer in their bedroom. Other than just turning it off at night, here’s how to silence a computer and ensure no pesky, late-night notifications interrupt your slumbering.
In Windows, click the cog icon on the Start menu to open Settings, then System. Choose Notifications and activate Do Not Disturb mode. Use the During these times toggle to set it on a regular schedule every evening. You even get a summary of the alerts you missed when you check again in the morning. Another option for those looking to sleep without annoying notifications is simply to mute your Windows computer altogether.
If you're using macOS, you can temporarily enable the Do Not Disturb mode by holding the Option key and clicking the Notification Center icon in the far right of the desktop menu bar—that’s where the time and date are displayed. Incoming notifications won't make a sound or show up on screen, though they will still collect in the Notification Center.
To schedule Do Not Disturb mode, open the Apple menu and pick System Settings, then select Focus and choose Do Not Disturb. Here you can decide when it’s activated and what’s allowed to pass through. As on Windows, you can just mute macOS when you go to bed by pressing F10 or by clicking on the audio icon on the menu.
