How do I silence Outlook notifications on my phone?

Too many notifications popping up from the Outlook app on your phone can quickly become annoying and distracting. While the notifications aim to keep you updated on new emails or calendar events, the constant stream of sounds and banners can disrupt your workflow or personal time. Fortunately, Outlook provides customizable notification settings on both iOS and Android devices to better manage alerts based on your preferences.

This guide will walk through how to silence Outlook notifications temporarily or disable them entirely on your phone. You’ll also learn how to customize notification sounds, set quiet hours, adjust frequency, and leverage focus modes for more control. With a few simple adjustments, you can take charge of your Outlook notifications so they work for you rather than annoy you.

Understand Notification Settings

Notification settings on iOS and Android have some key differences that are important to understand when managing Outlook notifications on your phone. On iOS, notifications are managed at the system level through Settings, where you can control notifications for each app individually. Android also has system-level control through Settings, but notifications can also be customized within each app.

For Outlook, notifications can be controlled both within the Outlook mobile app itself and at the system level. In the Outlook app, you can toggle notifications on/off, select which types of notifications to receive (emails, calendar events, reminders, etc.), and customize the notification sound. At the system level, you can turn Outlook notifications off completely, override the app’s sound with your own system sound, or allow Outlook notifications to bypass Do Not Disturb.

So when managing Outlook notifications, be aware that changes made within the Outlook app may be overridden by your system-level notification settings. Check both places if notifications are not behaving as expected. The Outlook app controls the notification content, while the system settings govern the delivery and behavior of notifications.

Temporarily Silence Notifications

You can temporarily silence notifications from Outlook and other apps on your iPhone using mute or do not disturb modes. These allow you to quickly silence notifications for a period of time without fully disabling them.

To mute notifications, swipe down from the top of the screen to access the Control Center and tap the crescent moon icon to enable Do Not Disturb mode ¹. You can customize how long you want it enabled and allow exceptions for certain contacts or apps. This mutes all non-essential notifications.

You can also swipe left on a notification, press and hold on the app icon, and select “Deliver Quietly” to mute only that app ². The notifications will still appear in your Notification Center but won’t make a sound.

For granular control, open the Settings app, select Notifications, choose the app, and toggle off Sounds to mute that app’s alerts. You can also adjust notification frequency here.

Enabling Do Not Disturb or muting specific apps is a quick way to silence Outlook notifications temporarily without fully disabling them.

Disable Notifications Entirely

If you want to disable notifications from the Outlook app completely, you can turn them off entirely both for your iOS device and within the Outlook app settings. To disable all notifications on your iOS device:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.

Scroll down and tap on “Outlook.”
Toggle “Allow Notifications” off.

This will disable all notifications from the Outlook app. To disable notifications for specific accounts within the Outlook app:

Open the Outlook app.
Tap on the profile icon in the top left.
Tap on “Manage Accounts.”

Select the account you want to disable notifications for.
Toggle “Notifications” off.

Doing this for each account will turn off notifications for those accounts within the Outlook app only. You can also customize notifications per account this way.

Customize Notification Sounds

You can customize the notification sounds in Outlook to change the default sound or set it to silent. On an iPhone, open the Settings app, select Notifications, then select Outlook. Under Sounds, you can select a different sound or None to silence notifications.

On Android, open the Outlook app, go to Settings > Notifications > Default notification sound. Here you can select a different sound or Silent to disable sound for Outlook notifications.

On Windows 10 and 11, open Outlook and go to File > Options > Mail. Under Message arrival, click the dropdown next to New mail notification and select (None) to silence the sound for new mail notifications.

Setting the notification sound to silent or none is an easy way to disable sounds for Outlook notifications on all platforms without fully turning off notifications.

Set Quiet Hours

One way to silence Outlook notifications on your phone is to set up Quiet Hours. This allows you to schedule specific times when you don’t want to receive notifications.

To set up Quiet Hours in Outlook mobile:
– Open the Outlook app and tap on your profile icon in the top left.
– Select “Settings” and then “Notifications”.
– Tap on “Quiet hours” and toggle it on.
– You can choose “Certain hours” and set a start and end time. Or select “All day” to disable notifications entirely.

– Choose which days of the week you want Quiet Hours enabled.
– You can also select “Priority senders” if you want to still receive notifications from certain important contacts during Quiet Hours.

Quiet Hours allows you to minimize distractions during times when you don’t want to be bothered by notifications. You can customize it to fit your schedule and preferences.

Adjust Notification Frequency

You can control how often you receive new email notifications from Outlook. By default, Outlook checks for new messages every 30 minutes and sends a notification if new mail has arrived. However, you can customize this frequency to reduce distractions.

To change the notification frequency in Outlook for iOS:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on “Notifications”.
Select “Outlook” from the list of apps.

Under “Allow Notifications”, tap on the current frequency such as “Every 30 minutes”.
Select a new frequency from the options, like “Hourly” or “Daily”.

This will adjust how often Outlook checks for new mail and sends notifications. You can also turn off notifications entirely on this screen. Keep in mind that reducing the frequency may lead to delays in seeing new messages.

On Android, open the Outlook app, go to Settings > General > Sync frequency and select a new option to adjust notification frequency.

For Outlook on the web, click on the Settings gear icon > View all Outlook settings > General > New message notifications and choose a frequency. You can also disable notifications here.

Adjusting the notification frequency in Outlook’s settings is an easy way to control distractions and customize how often you are informed of new emails.

Use Focus Modes

Starting with iOS 15 and now available in iOS 16, Apple introduced Focus modes to help users minimize distractions on their iPhone (Set up a Focus on iPhone). Focus modes allow you to filter notifications and apps based on what you want to focus on at the moment.

There are several preset Focus modes to choose from, including Do Not Disturb, Personal, Sleep, Work, Driving, Fitness, Gaming, Mindfulness, and Reading. You can customize these modes to allow notifications from only certain people and apps.

Two of the most useful Focus modes are Priority and Sleep. Priority mode silences all notifications except for those you specifically allow. This is great for minimizing distractions during important tasks. Sleep mode turns on automatically during your scheduled sleep hours, silencing notifications so you aren’t woken up.

To enable Focus modes, open Settings > Focus on your iPhone. Tap the mode you want to use and customize the people and apps that can send notifications. You can then easily access your enabled Focus modes from Control Center.

Manage VIP Notifications

You can allow notifications to come through only from your VIP or other important contacts in Outlook Mobile. This reduces interruptions from less critical emails.

On iOS, go to Settings > Notifications > Outlook and toggle “VIP Notifications” on. This will restrict notifications to just your VIP contacts ^[1].

On Android, tap the Settings icon in the app and go to Notifications. Toggle “VIPs” on under the Notification sound section. Again, this limits notifications to VIPs ^[2].

Marking important contacts as VIPs in Outlook and then enabling VIP-only notifications is a great way to filter out noise and distractions. You’ll only get alerted to emails that matter.

How to Manage Outlook Notifications for a Better Mobile Experience

Conclusion

Outlook’s notifications on your phone can quickly become overwhelming or distracting if they are not properly managed. The key is understanding the various notification settings available and customizing them to suit your needs and preferences.

You can take simple steps like temporarily silencing notifications, adjusting notification frequency, creating Focus modes, or managing notifications from VIP contacts. For more control, you can customize notification sounds, set Quiet Hours, or disable certain notifications entirely.

The goal is to reduce notification overload and disruptions, while still receiving the most important Outlook alerts on your mobile device. By taking a few minutes to explore and configure the notification settings, you can ensure Outlook notifications work for you rather than against you.