shipwreck dinky: How to set up and use Notification Center's Do Not Disturb mode

How to use Do Not Disturb for Notification Center on iPhone and iPad

While Notification Center is a great tool for receiving alerts on your iPhone and iPad, some times notification turns into interruption. That's where the new iOS 6 Do Not Disturb feature comes in. It allows your iPhone or iPad to continue to collect notifications without beeping, buzzing, or lighting up the lock screen. Whether you're in a meeting or want a peaceful night's sleep, Do Not Disturb can give you it.

How to enable Do Not Disturb

You can quickly enable Do Not Disturb at any time to mute notifications and alerts until you're ready to let them start beeping and buzzing again.

Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

Find the Do Not Disturb toggle and turn it to On.

How to customize Do Not Disturb settings

By default, the Do Not Disturb feature will still allow calls from Favorites or from anyone who calls twice in rapid succession. However, you can easily customize this to something that better suits your situation.

Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

Tap Notifications.
Tap Do Not Disturb.

Under Allow Calls From you can choose to allow calls from only Favorites, no one, or all calls. Choose the option you'd like and then go back to the previous screen by tapping Do Not Disturb in the upper left hand corner.

The Repeated Calls option allows you to turn on or off repeated calls. This means that if the same person calls back within three minutes of the original call, the call will go through without being silenced the second time. If you want this feature turned off, tap the slider to Off.

How to schedule Do Not Disturb

If you have regular times each day that you don't want to be bothered with notifications, you can enable Do Not Disturb to automatically turn on every day at the same time. This is a nice feature to use at night so Messages, Facebook, phone calls, Twitter, and other notifications don't disturb you while you're trying to sleep.

Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

Tap Notifications.
Tap Do Not Disturb.

Tick the slider to On under the Scheduled option.

Tap on the From/To section and choose the times you'd like Do Not Disturb to be regularly activated for every day.

That's it. Do Not Disturb will activate on its own every day at the times specified.

How to quickly tell if Do Not Disturb is active

If you're worried that you might accidentally turn on Do Not Disturb mode, or that you might forget it's been automatically scheduled, and you'll miss an important alert, iOS 6 makes it easy to tell at a glance whether Do Not Disturb is active or not.

Simply look at the status bar at the top of your iPhone and if you see a little crescent moon icon, Do Not Disturb is on. If you don't, Do Not Disturb is off.