Reduce Interruptions is a new Focus in iOS 18 that judges on the fly which notifications seem important, using Apple Intelligence.
Setting up a Focus mode by hand is a bit of a chore. You need to know exactly which contacts and apps you want to silence and let through. You need to keep maintaining them as you add new contacts and download new apps.
Reduce Interruptions is a new Focus mode that’s a slightly smarter Do Not Disturb. There’s no work necessary. And, if you do have a highly customized existing Focus, you can add its smarts on top of your existing rules and customizations. Here’s how to make the most of it.
How to use the Reduce Interruptions Focus in iOS 18
The first Apple Intelligence features are available now in iOS 18.1. The second round of features is already in testing in iOS 18.2. But to run Apple Intelligence, you’ll need an iPhone, Mac or iPad with an M-series chip, an A17 Pro chip or greater.
Table of Contents:
- Enable Apple Intelligence
- Enable Reduce Interruptions
- Customize the Reduce Interruptions Focus
- Add its intelligence to an existing Focus
Enable Apple Intelligence
To turn on the Apple Intelligence features, open Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri. Tap Join the Apple Intelligence waitlist to reserve your spot in line. The feature is being rolled out gradually, likely to test the impact it will have on Apple servers.
At the moment, the wait time isn’t very long — just a matter of minutes. That may change as more people sign up.
When you’re let in, you’ll get a notification. Downloading the models that power Apple Intelligence may take a while.
Enable Reduce Interruptions
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Turn on Reduce Interruptions like any other Focus. From Control Center, tap Focus and select Reduce Interruptions from the list. You can also tap the ⋯ button to specify if you only need it on for an hour, until this evening, until you leave a location or until the current calendar event ends. Alternatively, you can enable it by asking Siri, from your Apple Watch or using a Shortcut widget.
I turned it on and stopped getting pings from a busy Snapchat group and a few texts. I did some testing with Slack. When my colleague Ed pinged me without a message (“@Griffin”) it didn’t notify me, which is good; but it did ping me when I asked him to write something that sounded important (“@Griffin Your car is being towed!”). It’s not perfect though. A text from Meijer that my grocery order was ready for pickup was also silenced, and I would have liked to know about that one.
As you use it, you might be prompted whether an app should be allowed to interrupt you in the Focus. This will let the system know what notifications you consider important or not.
Customize the Reduce Interruptions Focus
You can still apply fixed rules to overrule the AI and customizations in Settings > Focus > Reduce Interruptions.
- Just like any other Focus mode, you can set a specific group of contacts and apps to be whitelisted.
- Tap Options and you can choose to hide badges or show muted notifications on the Lock Screen.
- Tap Add Schedule if you want it to come on automatically.
- To immerse yourself in the Focus, you can tie the Focus to a custom Lock Screen, Home Screen and Watch face.
- Finally, you can choose to filter visible calendars, inboxes, Messages conversations and more by tapping Add Filter.
Add its intelligence to an existing Focus
In Settings > Focus, tap on any of your existing Focus modes to apply Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing there, too. This lets you use the AI-powered model on top of any existing Focuses, leaving all their customizations the same.
More Apple Intelligence features
This article on the Reduce Interruptions Focus mode was originally published on October 18, 2024. It has been updated with the latest information.
