manage iOS – With the average person getting 146 notifications a day—and Gen Z seeing about 181—iOS 26 offers practical ways to regain control. Scheduled Summary can batch notifications, individual apps can be silenced, and Government Alerts can be tuned so you don’t miss
If your iPhone feels like it’s buzzing nonstop, you’re not imagining it. A 2024 study found the average person receives 146 notifications per day. For younger users, the pace is even more relentless: Generation Z averages about 181 notifications a day—roughly one every eight minutes.
There’s a simple truth under the noise: the problem isn’t always the number of notifications. It’s how often they hit. iOS 26’s Scheduled Summary is built for people who are tired of being interrupted every few minutes.
To set it up, start by opening the Settings app. Tap Notifications, then tap Scheduled Summary. Toggle Scheduled Summary on, then press Continue. From there, set the schedule for your notification summaries and select which apps you want included in Scheduled Summary. When you’re done, press the back button.
If Scheduled Summary is for controlling frequency, turning off notifications for specific apps is for dealing with the repeat offenders. For apps that constantly ping your screen—especially ones you only use occasionally and that seem determined to keep sending junk—there’s a quicker route: remove the app’s permission to notify you.
Open Settings, tap Notifications, then scroll down and tap the app you want to stop receiving notifications from. Toggle off Allow Notifications.
And then there’s the category that can feel emotionally loaded the moment it appears: government alerts. Weather alerts and AMBER alerts can definitely be jarring when they come at the wrong time. But not all of them deserve to be muted.
Public Safety Alerts and Emergency Alerts are specifically singled out as ones worth leaving on, because they provide both Severe and Extreme Imminent Threat Alerts. If you want to tighten what you receive, you can.
Open Settings and scroll to the bottom to the section labeled Government Alerts. Toggle off any alerts you no longer want to receive. When finished, either close Settings or hit the back button.
iOS 26 iPhone notifications Scheduled Summary allow notifications government alerts public safety alerts emergency alerts AMBER alerts notification management