New Setup Options and Filters in Focus on the Mac with macOS Ventura

In this video, we’re going to take a look at the new focus options we have that was introduced with MacOS Ventura, we have new setup options, or it’s easier to set up these focuses. And we have new filters, filters can be pretty powerful. Let’s see what I mean. Let’s go over to my Mac.

Now, if you’re not familiar with focus, it’s basically a customized Do Not Disturb, when we turn on Do Not Disturb. In past versions of macOS. Basically, what it would do is it would stop all notifications from people and from apps. While with focus, what they did is they introduced a little bit of customization to that, I was able to select which apps I can receive notifications from and which people I can receive notifications from. Well, now with MacOS been tour, they stepped that up a little bit, we can now in addition to our I should say, or in addition to selecting who I want to receive notifications from, I may want to set who I do not want to see notifications from. And we’re also able to filter our calendar as an example, when I’m at work, I only want to see my Work calendar. When I’m at home, I only want to see my Home calendar, we can now do this with focus. To set this up, what we do is we go to our settings, this replaced our System Preferences. So I go up to my Apple menu here. And then we go over to our system settings. Again, this is basically just our System Preferences, but it looks very much like iOS. So now what I need to do is go over to focus, I click on it.

And we can see we have different focuses here, I’m just going to create a new focus, and then we’re just going to step through so you can kind of see what the different changes are and what we can do with it. So I’m going to click on Add focus. First thing we need to do is click on custom, I’m going to just customize my own focus. We’re going to call this one personal. So I just call this personal. So maybe this is while I’m watching TV or something like that I’m not at work, I’m not at the school. This is just my personal Do Not Disturb or personal focus. So I go over to okay here. And the first thing that we need to do is we need to set who we want to allow notifications from.

So I click on allowed people. From here, what I’m able to do is add people who I want to receive notifications from. This is nothing new. But now what we can do with MacOS Ventura is we can set who we want to silence notifications from. So in this case, what you may want to do is just add people that you work with. So then if anybody else messages, you, while you’re in this focus, you’ll get that message, you’ll get that notification. But if someone from work messages, you, you will not get that notification. So this is what is new, we can silence from some people, we can do the same thing. Let’s just go ahead and add Beth in here, I’m gonna allow notifications from my wife. So we’ll just go with Beth here, ad.

We can also set who we want to allow phone calls from favorites contacts only, or any one of my lists. And then I can set it to allow repeated calls. So if someone calls me a couple of times, or in three minutes, and we’ll get through, it’ll allow that phone call to come through. I’m going to click on Done. We can do the same thing with apps. Prior to Mac OS venture, what we’re able to do is just add apps who we want to receive notifications from. Well, now, what we can do is we can silence apps. So again, maybe I want to silence an app that I use at school. Or maybe I want to silence an app that I use at work, I would add that app in here. And then when I’m in that personal focus, I would not receive any notifications.

We can also set up for time sensitive and location. So if it’s time sensitive, it will still come through. So if there’s a specific time tied to it. Below that we have our schedule. This is when we want it to turn on. This is nothing no but I can turn it on by time. So it will turn out at a specific time. I can have it turned on by location. I use this with the school. So when I’m at the school, my iPhone will know that I’m at the school or even if I take my Mac, my Mac will know that I’m at the school when I connect up to their network. And then it’ll turn on the school focus. And then I can also set up for a specific app. So let’s say you host webinars or you join webinars, Zoom calls, maybe you want to stop notifications when you open up zoom. This is where you can do that you would create a photo

cause for zoom, and only allow specific people or apps or not allow specific people or apps to contact you or send notifications while you’re on that Zoom call and have it start when you open up zoom here, when you quit out of zoom, it’ll take it out of that focus. I’m going to leave it at manual here. And then new with MacOS Ventura, focus filters. This is pretty powerful stuff here. When I click on Add Filter here, what I’m able to do is filter my calendars, I can filter my mail, my messages, or even Safari tab groups. So when I go over to Calendar, now, this is my personal focus. So let’s say I’m watching TV, what I would like to do is only view my Home calendar or my family calendar, I don’t want to view my Work calendar. So I’m just going to leave home and family here checked. I click on Add. And let’s go and add another filter.

We’re gonna go with mail here, I only want to view my iCloud mail, I don’t want to view my dance tutorials, my work mail, I just want my personal mail. So I’m just going to leave iCloud checked. I can also filter specific conversations. And if you have Safari tab group set up, when you’re in this focus, it will open up when you open up Safari, it will open up to that tab group. So I click on this, I would choose my tab group, we’re going to go with home, click on Add. And now when I’m in this focus, it will allow Beth, it’s not going to silence any apps, I have to set it up manually. It is going to filter to my home and family calendar, I’m going to be able to view my iCloud account, not my work account. And it’s going to open up to my home tab group. So now let’s see how this works.

We’re going to go to my control center here. I’m going to turn on personal personnel here. And when I do and I open up calendar, what do you think we’re going to see, we’re going to see just my home calendars, you can see that it is filtered by focus. So if I wanted to see all of my calendars, I just click on this. And now I can see all of my calendars, I want to go back to my focus, I turn it back on. And now I’m back at my focus. I’m only looking at my Home calendar as an example. Let’s take a look at now remember, I have a couple of accounts, I have my dad’s tutorials account and then I have my personal account. So when I go over to mail here, being that I’ve in that focus, I only see the one mailbox, I want to see all of them, well, then what I do is I turn off the focus here. And then I can see all of my email accounts. But by default, when I open up mail, it’s only going to show me my personal email. So this is a way that you could just focus on your personal stuff. Let’s take a look at Safari. Remember, I have it open up to a tab group. So now when I go to Safari here, it opened up to my home tab group. If I were to turn that focus off now when I go to my calendar, it’s going to show me all of my calendars. If I open up mail, it’s going to show me all of my accounts. And when I go to Safari here, we can see it opened up to my standard tabs, not my home tab group.

So that is what’s new with focus, they made it a lot easier to set up, we can now set who we want to receive notifications from or which apps we want to receive notifications from. Or if we do not want to receive notifications from a specific person or app. We can also add filters with filters. What we’re able to do when we go into a specific app is set a specific account such as a specific calendar or a specific tabs group or a specific mail account. So that’s what’s new with focus or what was introduced or improved with focus in macOS Ventura.