Create and Set Focus Modes on the iPad

Learn how to customize Do Not Disturb with Focus Modes on the iPad.

Learn how to customize Do Not Disturb with Focus Modes on the iPad. You can set who can notify you and which apps can notify you. You can also have a focus more turn on automatically based on time, location, or it can be based on when you open an app! Learn how to control your notifications based on what you are doing in this video for the iPad.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at Focus Mode on the iPad. With Focus Mode what were able to do is basically customize Do Not Disturb. We can say who we want to receive notifications from, which apps we want to receive notifications from. This was introduced with iPadOS 15. Let’s see how Focus Mode works on the iPad. Let’s go to my iPad.

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, basically with Focus Mode, what we’re able to do is customize Do Not Disturb. When we had Do Not Disturb turned on in past versions of iPadOS, it basically blocked all notifications. Well, now what we can do is we can customize Do Not Disturb and we can allow notifications from specific people as well as specific apps, and we can create multiple Focus Modes.

So how do we set this up? Well, we need to go to our Settings app. Over on the left, you’re going to see Focus. Again, this replaces Do Not Disturb, and when I tap you’re going to see we still do have Do Not Disturb. If I were to turn this on, I just tap on it, and then I tap on the slider here. It will no longer allow notifications from any people as well as any apps.

But as I mentioned earlier, we can now customize this. Let’s go back over to Focus to add a new Focus Mode. You just tap on the plus. From here, what you can do is customize your own Focus Mode, basically create your own or you can choose from one of these predefined templates. These are not really templates are basically just names with an icon. So I’m going to go down to Personal here. I tap on Personal and now I’m able to set up my Personal Focus.

So now let’s tap on next and see how this works. The first thing is, is we can set who we want to allow notifications. Anyone that is not in this list when I am focused in this Personal Focus Mode, I will not be able to receive any notifications from. So let’s go ahead and add my wife here, and I’m going to add Dan’s Tutorials. I tap on Done, and now we can see those people have been added. So I’m only going to receive notifications from these people.

I can also set what happens when I receive calls. Right now to set for everyone. I’m going to receive calls from everyone. Well, let’s tap on this and let’s just put this to Favorites. If I’m trying to focus, I only want to have calls from my favorites. And then if someone does call me twice within three minutes, I can allow repeated. So if they’re not in my favorites and they do call me twice within three minutes, the call will come through. So I’m going to leave this on, I tap on done. And now we go to allow, we’re going to allow these people.

Next thing I need to do is I need to allow my apps, which apps do I want to receive notifications from? So I tap on Add App, and then I just tap on the apps I want to allow notifications. So I’m going to allow notifications from my Calendar. Let’s go ahead and allow notifications from my printer, and then we’re also going to allow notifications from Mail. When I’m finished, I tap on Done. Again, and we can see those apps have been added.

I can also allow time-sensitive notifications. So if there’s a time on a notification, such as in the Calendar, even if I didn’t have it in my Allowed Apps, I would be able to receive notifications because this is turned on. So it’s going to allow time sensitive notifications. I like to leave that on as well. So now I just tap on allow and then I tap on done.

So now I’ve created that personal notification. What I can do is share my status. So anyone that texts me, they’re going to be able to see what focus on. We can see that this has turned on.

I can also set which homescreens are allowed when I’m focusing. I have a separate video on this.

And then I have a couple of lock screen Settings. I can dim the screen. I can set if I want to see the notifications on my lock screen.

Our last step is when do we want our notification to be turned on? We can turn it on and off through the Control Center or through the slider here. But also what we can do is we can have it turn on automatically. This can be by time or location, it can be when you open up a specific app. Let’s tap on this and take a look at how we can turn on a specific focus.

We can schedule it by time and by day. I tap on time my from and to, and then which days I want this focus to turn on, I can also, let’s go back to new automation. I can also set it by location. I entered an address and then it’ll turn on. When I enter that location or go to that location. As an example, I help out at a local school. I can create a school focus and have it turn on when I go to that school automatically because the iPad knows where I am. I go back and then I can also have it turned on when I open up a specific app. So let’s say you set one up for reading. You have minimal notifications when you’re reading. When do you want that to turn on? Maybe when you open up the Kindle app or the Books app, this is where you can set that. And then you can also have smart activation with this. The iPad will automatically turn it on based on your location, our app usage.

So now we have it all set up. I’m just going to leave it at manual. I’m not going to have it turn on automatically. So I tap on cancel. I have my Personal Focus set. Let’s go back over to Focus.

The last setting we have is we can Share this Across Devices. So when I set this up, being that I have share across devices, It’s also going to be shared on my iPhone. So I’m going to be able to access that focus on my iPhone as well as my Mac, as long as I’m using Mac OS Monterey or later. So now I have all of the settings set.

How do we actually turn on Focus Mode? Let’s say I wanted to go into that Personal Focus Mode. To do that, let’s go ahead and tap on the Home button, to do that what we need to do is go to the Control Center. I do not have it automated, so I have to turn it on manually. So now I just go up to my Control Center. I swipe down and you’re going to see Focus.

Now, this is not one button. I want to clarify this, this is actually two different buttons. The crescent moon is an on and off for the current focus. So if I tap on the crescent moon, it’s going to go into Do Not Disturb because I do not have a Focus turned on. I tap on the crescent moon. It turns it off.

To switch Focuses, I want to go to that Personal Focus, what I need to do is I need to tap on the word Focus. So again, if I tap on the crescent moon, it just turns it on and off. If I tap on the word Focus, it allows me to change the focus. So I tap on Focus, we can see all of my different focuses here. We have my Personal. Tap on, and now I’m in my Personal Focus. I will only receive notifications from Beth and Dan’s Tutorials. And then I have a few select apps that I will receive notifications from. This is going to be shared across all my devices. So on my iPhone and my Mac, because I am using Mac OS Monterey, it’s also going to go into Focus mode. So now I press in on the Home button. We can see that we’re in Focus mode here. We have the icon for Personal. Let’s go ahead and turn focus mode off. I tap on the icon here, it turns it off, and we can see that we’re no longer in Focus mode. We do have an indicator up in the upper right-hand corner.

So that’s a look at Focus Mode. Basically it’s an enhanced version of Do Not Disturb. Instead of just turning off notifications from everyone, and all of your apps, what you’re able to do is specifically set which notifications you want to receive from. Which apps as well as who you want to receive those notifications from. You can schedule it based on time, location, or when you open up an app. And you can create multiple Focus Modes. If you want to turn it on and off manually, you go to the Control Center.

So that’s Focus Mode on the iPad.