To stop notifications from one iPhone app, open Settings > Notifications > the app and turn off Allow Notifications. If you only want to stop its sound, leave notifications enabled and turn off Sounds where offered. For temporary quiet across several apps, use Focus > Do Not Disturb in Control Center.
These are different choices: disabling notifications stops that app’s system alerts; disabling sound can leave visual alerts available; Focus applies a temporary set of exceptions. This guide uses iOS 26 settings. Names and available controls can vary by app and iOS version.
Choose How Much to Silence
| Your goal | Setting to use | How to undo it |
|---|---|---|
| No system alerts from one app | Allow Notifications off for that app | Turn Allow Notifications back on. |
| Visual alerts without the app’s sound | Sounds off, with the desired alert locations enabled | Enable Sounds or select a tone again. |
| Quiet for a meeting or scheduled period | Do Not Disturb or another Focus | Turn off that Focus and review its schedule. |
| Quiet for one text conversation | Hide Alerts in that conversation | Turn Hide Alerts off. |
Turn Off Notifications for One App
- Open Settings on your iPhone, then tap Notifications.
- Select the app whose alerts you want to stop.
- Turn Allow Notifications off. Repeat for other apps only if you also want to stop their alerts. Some apps also have their own alert menus, as shown in our guide to turning off ESPN Fantasy Football app notifications. Another example is our guide on how to turn off Instagram notifications on an iPhone.
Turning this permission off does not create a quiet queue of new notifications in Notification Center. You may still find messages, updates, or activity inside the app itself, depending on how that app works. Re-enabling permission does not guarantee that alerts suppressed while it was off will replay.
To resume alerts, return to the same app’s notification settings, enable Allow Notifications, and choose the alert locations and sound you want. Apple documents the app-level controls in its notification settings guide.
Keep Notifications but Remove Sound or Banners
Under Settings > Notifications > the app, keep Allow Notifications on. Turn off Sounds if that control is available. For an app that provides a tone chooser, select None if offered. For a worked example with one app, see how to turn off Twitch notification sounds on an iPhone. The same steps apply to ESPN Fantasy notification sounds on an iPhone.
To keep alerts in Notification Center without showing a pop-up or a Lock Screen alert, leave Notification Center selected and deselect Banners and Lock Screen. Adjust Badges separately if you also want to remove the number on the app icon. Available options differ between apps. Mail also has separate alert settings for VIP senders, covered in our guide to turning off VIP mail alerts on the Lock Screen.
Use Do Not Disturb for Temporary Quiet
- Open Control Center: swipe down from the top-right on a Face ID iPhone, or up from the bottom on a Home button iPhone.
- Open the Focus menu and select Do Not Disturb. If tapping the button toggles a Focus directly, touch and hold it to open the menu.
- Use the More button beside the profile to choose an offered duration, such as one hour, if you do not want to leave it on indefinitely.
For repeated quiet periods, go to Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb and add a schedule. Turning on Do Not Disturb first is also useful before you screen record on an iPhone, since notifications that appear on screen are captured in the video. There is no need to look for a separate iPhone “Quiet Hours” setting. Our Do Not Disturb setup guide covers schedules and exceptions.
Review People and Apps in that Focus before relying on it for quiet. Allowed contacts, calls, or apps can still interrupt you. A Silence Notifications From list silences the selected entries; an Allow Notifications From list permits selected entries instead.
Mute Only One Messages Conversation
Open the chat in Messages, tap the contact or group name, and turn Hide Alerts on. Messages can still arrive without that conversation’s alerts. Turn the same switch off to undo it. See our conversation-muting guide for the swipe gesture and other Messages options.
Does Silent Mode Stop Everything?
No. Silent Mode changes sounds rather than turning off every visual notification. On a Ring/Silent-switch iPhone, move the switch toward the back so orange is visible. On an Action-button model, use Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Silent Mode. If the Action button has another assigned function, pressing it may not silence the phone. For call-specific options, see how to silence or unsilence iPhone calls. If the phone blinks when an alert arrives, that is a separate setting, covered in how to turn flash notifications off on iPhone.
Haptics can still occur according to your settings (our guide to turning off vibration on an iPhone covers those switches), and media or some app sounds may still play. Apple explains these limits in its Silent Mode guide. Clock alarms are separate: Do Not Disturb and Silent Mode do not disable their sound, as described in Apple’s alarm guide.
If You Later Want Alerts Back
Undo the setting you changed: app notification permission, Sounds, Hide Alerts, or the active Focus. If quiet periods keep returning, review Focus schedules and sharing with other Apple devices. Our guide to fixing notifications silenced on iPhone helps identify which setting is responsible.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read hundreds of millions of times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.