Faster Notification Toggle

Faster Notification Toggle

Introduction

Shortcuts App

In this article I show you how to quickly toggle a specific notification type on or off. These iOS setting are normally buried in an inconvenient location that you must slog your way to. But using Apple’s Shortcuts app, you can create a button that jumps directly to the setting. You can even use a voice command and have Siri open the page for you.

For me, email notifications are especially vital during work hours. Because email is the lifeblood of an information business (like my employer’s), I want to respond immediately when a request or question hits my inbox. But it is equally important to prevent email alerts from interrupting meetings, disrupting doctor appointments, annoying cinema patrons, or awakening me and my spouse in the dead of night.

Therefore, I frequently toggle this particular notification on or off as the situation demands. I found the manual method unnecessarily cumbersome: First, find and open the Settings app. Then find the Notifications category. Next scroll through the massive list of apps in the search of the one I want (often scrolling past the Mail app). And, lastly, toggling the notifications to the desired state.

Find then start Settings

Look through the long list

Finally found it

Finally found it

I have now fixed that pain point: I can say “Hey, Siri, toggle mail” or tap a “Toggle Mail” button in my widgets. Either method jumps immediately to the toggle page for Mail. Below I give the steps on how to create this shortcut on your iOS device. This technique requires iOS version 13 (it does not work on certain older versions or out-of-date devices). Apple’s earlier support for this mechanism was a bit waffled, so let’s hope this recent development signifies a stronger commitment to let the Shortcuts app access settings.

Create the Shortcut

Watch the video below for a quick walkthrough. Or keep reading for the full written instructions and some additional information for advanced users.

Quick Video Walkthrough

Finding the Shortcut app

First, find and open Apple’s Shortcut app. If you don’t remember where you put it, use Apple’s Finder. On my iPhone the Finder is opened by swiping downward from the middle of the screen. Start typing the word “shortcut” and it will soon show the app in the Applications section. If you deleted it, then you can re-download it from the iTunes store.

 

Create a new shortcut

After you launch the Shortcuts app, make sure you are on the “My Shortcuts” page by using the menu at the bottom of the page. To create a shortcut, you can either tap the plus sign in the upper right corner of the page or tap the “Create Shortcut” button at the bottom of the displayed list.

 

Tap this button to name your shortcut or to choose its icon

I named my shortcut “Toggle Mail” for several reasons. First, it is short enough to fit inside a widget button. Second, I could also use Siri to invoke the shortcut because the name was memorable, easy to say, and unambiguous. And third, (the reason that it was memorable) was because the name was logical and self-explanatory. But feel free to use something else if this name does not work for you. To set the name of your shortcut, tap the button in the upper right of the page (with three dots) to access the shortcut’s “Details” page.

 

Give your shortcut a concise and memorable name

Replace the “Shortcut Name” in the top field by typing in the name you prefer.

 

To change the shortcut icon

While still on this “Details” page, tap the existing icon if you want to change the symbol or color. I chose green and used the “alert” symbol for my glyph. The “Show in Widget” is already on by default so we can leave that untouched. You could optionally also tap the “Add to Home Screen” if having the shortcut there is more your style. When you’re finished on this page tap the “Done” link in the upper right of the page to begin building the actions of the shortcut.

 

Setting the icon color

Setting the icon symbol. This icon was in the “Symbols” group (note button in bottom right).

Ready to add our first action

Tap the “Done” link in the upper right of the Icon page to return to the “Details” page. On the “Details” page tap the “Done” link to return to the actual shortcut definition.

Now tap the blue plus sign button (with the “Add Action” link) centered near the top of the page. Our shortcut will have two steps (i.e., actions). First, define our destination: that is, tell the shortcut where this particular setting lives. And, second, open that defined location (that is, display that page so we can set the toggle to the desired state).

 

For our first action, begin typing in “URL” into the search field. Select “URL” when it appears in the “Actions” results list.

 

Our first action needs a destination

When the action is initially added it has an example destination of “apple.com” in light text. Tap this example text so we can type in a replacement.

 

The first action with the destination defined

Enter the following string precisely. I recommend that you copy and paste the line below to ensure accuracy. 

prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID&path=com.apple.mobilemail
 

Now we are ready to add our second and final action. Again, tap the plus icon centered below our first action. When the search field appears begin typing “Open URLs” and then tap the matching result when it appears in the “Actions” list.

 

The finished shortcut

There are no parameters to configure for this final/second action. So, tap the “Done” link in the upper right of the page to finish your creation. It is now ready to use. You can invoke the shortcut from the widget button (swipe left-to-right from the center of the home page), or by name using Siri. If you took the option of putting a button on your home page, you might want to reposition its icon so it’s placed in a convenient location.

 

The “Toggle Mail” button (center left) in the Shortcuts section of the widgets page.

Hurray! Invoking the shortcut takes us directly to the desired setting.

Advanced Users

For users that are a bit more adventurous and technically inclined, you can use the URL shortcut technique to access different settings. If you’re not using Apple’s built-in mail program, you need to replace the identifier with your product’s official internal name. The first action will still begin with

prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID&path=

But instead of ending with com.apple.mobilemail you need to specify your mail app after the equal sign. Here is how to find the official internal name of your application.

  1. Go into the Notifications section of Settings and find the exact name as it’s listed there

  2. Open a web browser and search for “iTunes” and the name of your application (for example, “Outlook on iTunes store”)

  3. Find the search result that’s on the official Apple.com website. In the screenshot below, it was the first result.

  1. Click the official App Store link and confirm it’s the correct application (vendor, version, etc.)

  2. Make note of the final identification number in the URL. For our example, Microsoft Outlook’s URL to its App Store page is https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-outlook/id951937596 so the identification number is 951937596

  3. Put this identification at the end of a lookup URL (i.e., after the equal sign). For MS Outlook (app identifier 951937596) the URL would be https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=951937596 

  4. Go to the lookup URL and you’ll be prompted to download a file name 1.txt

  5. Save the file and then open it in a text editor

  6. Search this text file for “bundleId” and make note of the exact official name that follows. For our example, we found

    , "bundleId":"com.microsoft.Office.Outlook",

    So, the official internal name is com.microsoft.Office.Outlook

  7. Use this name in your shortcut. For this example, the first action would define the settings URL as:

prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID&path=com.microsoft.Office.Outlook

Other Settings

A shortcut can have other destinations than just notification toggles. Below is a slew of other destinations to inspire your creativity and research.

Accessibility

  • Accessibility:
    prefs:root=ACCESSIBILITY

App Store

  • App Store:
    prefs:root=STORE

  • App Store ⮞ App Downloads:
    prefs:root=STORE&path=App%20Downloads

  • App Store ⮞ Video Autoplay:
    prefs:root=STORE&path=Video%20Autoplay

Apple Pencil

  • Apple Pencil (iPad-only):
    prefs:root=Pencil

Battery

  • Battery:
    prefs:root=BATTERY_USAGE

  • Battery ⮞ Battery Health (iPhone-only):
    prefs:root=BATTERY_USAGE&path=BATTERY_HEALTH

Books

  • Books:
    prefs:root=IBOOKS

Calendar

  • Calendar:
    prefs:root=CALENDAR

  • Calendar ⮞ Alternate Calendars:
    prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Alternate%20Calendars

  • Calendar ⮞ Default Alert Times:
    prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Default%20Alert%20Times

  • Calendar ⮞ Default Calendar:
    prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Default%20Calendar

  • Calendar ⮞ Sync:
    prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Sync

Camera

  • Camera:
    prefs:root=CAMERA

  • Camera ⮞ Record Slo-mo:
    prefs:root=CAMERA&path=Record%20Slo-mo

  • Camera ⮞ Record Video:
    prefs:root=CAMERA&path=Record%20Video

Compass

  • Compass:
    prefs:root=COMPASS

Contacts

  • Contacts:
    prefs:root=CONTACTS

Control Center

  • Control Center:
    prefs:root=ControlCenter

  • Control Center ⮞ Customize Controls:
    prefs:root=ControlCenter&path=CUSTOMIZE_CONTROLS

Display

  • Display:
    prefs:root=DISPLAY

  • Display ⮞ Auto Lock:
    prefs:root=DISPLAY&path=AUTOLOCK

  • Display ⮞ Text Size:
    prefs:root=DISPLAY&path=TEXT_SIZE

Do Not Disturb

  • Do Not Disturb:
    prefs:root=DO_NOT_DISTURB

  • Do Not Disturb ⮞ Allow Calls From:
    prefs:root=DO_NOT_DISTURB&path=Allow%20Calls%20From

Emergency SOS

  • Emergency SOS:
    prefs:root=EMERGENCY_SOS

Face ID

  • Face ID:
    prefs:root=PASSCODE

FaceTime

  • FaceTime:
    prefs:root=FACETIME

Game Center

  • Game Center:
    prefs:root=GAMECENTER

General

  • General:
    prefs:root=General

  • General ⮞ About:
    prefs:root=General&path=About

  • General ⮞ Background App Refresh:
    prefs:root=General&path=AUTO_CONTENT_DOWNLOAD

  • General ⮞ CarPlay:
    prefs:root=General&path=CARPLAY

  • General ⮞ Date & Time:
    prefs:root=General&path=DATE_AND_TIME

  • General ⮞ Dictionary:
    prefs:root=General&path=DICTIONARY

  • General ⮞ Keyboard:
    prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard

  • General ⮞ Keyboard ⮞ Hardware Keyboard:
    prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard/Hardware%20Keyboard

  • General ⮞ Keyboard ⮞ Keyboards:
    prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard/KEYBOARDS

  • General ⮞ Keyboard ⮞ One Handed Keyboard:
    prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard/ReachableKeyboard

  • General ⮞ Keyboard ⮞ Text Replacement:
    prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard/USER_DICTIONARY

  • General ⮞ Language & Region:
    prefs:root=General&path=INTERNATIONAL

  • General ⮞ Multitasking (iPad-only):
    prefs:root=General&path=MULTITASKING

  • General ⮞ Profiles:
    prefs:root=General&path=ManagedConfigurationList

  • General ⮞ Reset:
    prefs:root=General&path=Reset

  • General ⮞ Software Update:
    prefs:root=General&path=SOFTWARE_UPDATE_LINK

Health

  • Health:
    prefs:root=HEALTH

iCloud

  • iCloud:
    prefs:root=CASTLE

  • iCloud Backup:
    prefs:root=CASTLE&path=BACKUP

Mail

  • Mail:
    prefs:root=MAIL

  • Mail ⮞ Blocked:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Blocked

  • Mail ⮞ Blocked Sender Options:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Blocked%20Sender%20Options

  • Mail ⮞ Default Account:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Default%20Account

  • Mail ⮞ Include Attachments with Replies:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Include%20Attachments%20with%20Replies

  • Mail ⮞ Increase Quote Level:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Increase%20Quote%20Level

  • Mail ⮞ Mark Addresses:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Mark%20Addresses

  • Mail ⮞ Muted Thread Action:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Muted%20Thread%20Action

  • Mail ⮞ Notifications:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=NOTIFICATIONS

  • Mail ⮞ Preview:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Preview

  • Mail ⮞ Signature:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Signature

  • Mail ⮞ Swipe Options:
    prefs:root=MAIL&path=Swipe%20Options

Maps

  • Maps:
    prefs:root=MAPS

  • Maps ⮞ Driving & Navigation:
    prefs:root=MAPS&path=Driving%20%26%20Navigation

  • Maps ⮞ Transit:
    prefs:root=MAPS&path=Transit

Measure

  • Measure:
    prefs:root=MEASURE

Messages

  • Messages:
    prefs:root=MESSAGES

Music

  • Music: prefs:root=MUSIC

  • Music ⮞ Cellular Data:
    prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:CellularData

  • Music ⮞ EQ:
    prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:EQ

  • Music ⮞ Optimize Storage:
    prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:OptimizeStorage

  • Music ⮞ Volume Limit:
    prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:VolumeLimit

News

  • News:
    prefs:root=NEWS

Notes

  • Notes: prefs:root=NOTES

  • Notes ⮞ Access Notes from Lock Screen:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=Access%20Notes%20from%20Lock%20Screen

  • Notes ⮞ Default Account:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=Default%20Account

  • Notes ⮞ Lines & Grids:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=Lines%20%26%20Grids

  • Notes ⮞ New Notes Start With:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=New%20Notes%20Start%20With

  • Notes ⮞ Password:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=Password

  • Notes ⮞ Sort Checked Items:
    prefs:root=NOTES&path=Sort%20Checked%20Items

  • Notes ⮞ Sort Notes By
    : prefs:root=NOTES&path=Sort%20Notes%20By

Passwords & Accounts

  • Passwords & Accounts:
    prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS

  • Passwords & Accounts ⮞ Add Account:
    prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS&path=ADD_ACCOUNT

  • Passwords & Accounts ⮞ Fetch New Data:
    prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS&path=FETCH_NEW_DATA

Personal Hotspot

  • Personal Hotspot:
    prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING

  • Personal Hotspot ⮞ Family Sharing:
    prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING&path=Family%20Sharing

  • Personal Hotspot ⮞ Wi-Fi Password:
    prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING&path=Wi-Fi%20Password

Phone

  • Phone:
    prefs:root=Phone

Photos

  • Photos:
    prefs:root=Photos

Privacy

  • Privacy:
    prefs:root=Privacy

  • Privacy ⮞ Calendars:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=CALENDARS

  • Privacy ⮞ Camera:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=CAMERA

  • Privacy ⮞ Contacts:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=CONTACTS

  • Privacy ⮞ Location Services:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=LOCATION

  • Privacy ⮞ Microphone:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=MICROPHONE

  • Privacy ⮞ Motion:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=MOTION\

  • Privacy ⮞ Photos:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=PHOTOS

  • Privacy ⮞ Reminders:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=REMINDERS

  • Privacy ⮞ Speech Recognition:
    prefs:root=Privacy&path=SPEECH_RECOGNITION

Reminders

  • Reminders:
    prefs:root=REMINDERS

  • Reminders ⮞ Default List:
    prefs:root=REMINDERS&path=DEFAULT_LIST

Safari Browser

  • Safari:
    prefs:root=SAFARI

  • Safari ⮞ Advanced:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=ADVANCED

  • Safari ⮞ Camera:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Camera

  • Safari ⮞ Clear History and Data:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=CLEAR_HISTORY_AND_DATA

  • Safari ⮞ Close Tabs:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Close%20Tabs

  • Safari ⮞ Content Blockers:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Content%20Blockers

  • Safari ⮞ Downloads:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=DOWNLOADS

  • Safari ⮞ Location:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Location

  • Safari ⮞ Microphone:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Microphone

  • Safari ⮞ Page Zoom:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Page%20Zoom

  • Safari ⮞ Reader:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Reader

  • Safari ⮞ Request Desktop Website:
    prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Request%20Desktop%20Website

Screen Time

  • Screen Time:
    prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME

  • Screen Time ⮞ Always Allowed:
    prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=ALWAYS_ALLOWED

  • Screen Time ⮞ App Limits:
    prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=APP_LIMITS

  • Screen Time ⮞ Downtime:
    prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=DOWNTIME

Shortcuts

  • Shortcuts:
    prefs:root=SHORTCUTS

Siri

  • Siri:
    prefs:root=SIRI

Sounds

  • Ringtone:

    prefs:root=Sounds&path=Ringtone

  • Sounds:
    prefs:root=Sounds

TV

  • Settings ⮞ TV:
    prefs:root=TVAPP

Voice Memos

  • Voice Memos:
    prefs:root=VOICE_MEMOS

VPN

  • VPN:
    prefs:root=General&path=VPN

Wallet

  • Wallet:
    prefs:root=PASSBOOK

Wallpaper

  • Wallpaper:
    prefs:root=Wallpaper

Wireless Radios

  • Bluetooth:
    prefs:root=Bluetooth

  • Cellular:
    prefs:root=MOBILE_DATA_SETTINGS_ID

  • Wi-Fi:
    prefs:root=WIFI