How to Turn Off News Notifications Without Missing Big Stories

Get a quieter phone that still alerts you to urgent news.

Most major news apps for both iPhone and Android let you turn off notifications from a specific source, while leaving a trusted alert source turned on. Combined with adjusting phone-level notification settings, it’s possible to tame your notification flood without losing real news.

Turn down the firehose at the app level

The main move is to go to the settings of each news app and stop all notifications except from your most trusted source. This stops one channel while leaving another to alert you.

On iPhone, Apple News lets you control notification levels right in the app. In Apple News, open the guide in the upper right, tap Following, then Notifications & Email. Tap your Most Trusted Source to allow its notifications. Tap all your other sources and turn off notifications and newsletters to them.

For Google News on Android, open the Google News app, tap your profile picture or initials, then News Settings. Tap Notifications, then under Alerts, turn off notifications from all sources except the one you trust most. You can control the volume of the notifications you do receive by selecting Low, Medium or High.

Turning off notifications from all but one source narrows your alerts to your best single choice, preventing numerous alerts or newsletters. It keeps you in the loop while constraining pings.

Keep one trusted source, not ten

The system prioritizes keeping one trustworthy news source active, then shuts off the rest. It asks you to pick your best source.

On iPhone, choosing one trusted news source on Apple News means turning on digital notifications and/or newsletters for that one while turning off those of the rest.

On Android, Google News takes a somewhat similar approach, through its per-source notification controls. These controls let you take news from unimportant or low-trust sources, receiving no notifications from them, while leaving your trusted news source’s notifications on.

Use phone-level controls to make alerts less intrusive

Once you have cut off news alerts inside each news app, use your phone’s own settings to tone down alerts’ appearance.

iPhone’s News app’s notifications are just like a normal app’s, and you can set how they alert you using iPhone’s system-wide Notification Center. Choose how or if you’ll see these alert banners, icon badges or notification sounds. Emergency alerts are managed separately from these settings.

Android notifications handle emergencies. Emergency alerts are managed separately under Settings > Notifications.

Preserve true urgent alerts

While you can ignore most news alerts, you can’t turn off emergency warnings.

On iPhone, emergency alerts are under Settings > Notifications, under Government Alerts. Leave those you need on.

On Android, Wireless emergency alerts are in Settings > Notifications, then Wireless emergency alerts or similar.

What to change first on iPhone and Android

Start by choosing your news channels. iPhone News users should go to the Apple News app’s settings, choose one channel, and turn its notifiers on. Turn off its competitors.

Google News users on Android should go to your Google News app’s settings, pick one trustworthy channel, and turn its notifications to High. Set the competitors to zero.

Finish by going a layer deeper. For iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications, find your Apple News channel, and make sure their notifications follow how you want them to display.