NUU Mobile | Tutorial Tuesday | Episode 9 | Using Android’s “Do Not Disturb” Mode
NUU Mobile | Tutorial Tuesday | Episode 9 | Using Android’s “Do Not Disturb” Mode
Here we are in Week 9 of Tutorial Tuesdays, and this time, we’re going to look at how to setup and use Android’s helpful Do Not Disturb setting.
(This tutorial was done on stock Android 10 - there may be slight differences on other versions)
Have you ever needed your phone to just go away for a while? Not physically, but in terms of people messaging you, emails coming in, phone calls, etc… sometimes you might want to turn it off, but without turning it off. Even if you jam the volume all the way down, Android has multiple volume sliders, so that’s not so easy, either. Luckily, Android has a one-tap solution - the Do Not Disturb mode.
Do Not Disturb, or DND, is not only capable of limiting audible interruptions, but even notifications. Luckily, DND can be configured to suit your needs.
Finding DND is pretty easy - just look up in your Quick Settings (if you want to know more about these, see last week’s tutorial!), and you’ll see the DND icon - a circle with a line through the middle. Tapping it will toggle it on and off, which is already pretty good with its default settings, but let’s look inside and see what we can do with this. Long-press the DND icon to jump inside its settings panel.
Foremost, we see settings for exceptions in DND mode, starting with phone calls. Tapping into Calls, we can see a setting to discriminate between different kinds of calls: allowing any calls, calls from contacts only, starred contacts only, or to not allow any calls whatsoever. The default here is to allow only starred contacts, and they even list those below, for quick reference.
Below that, there’s a toggle to allow for people who call multiple times within a short time - if you want to get a call from someone who’s apparently trying to reach you urgently.
For SMS, MMS, and messaging apps, we have the same options as before with calling.
Tapping on “See all Exceptions”, we also have options to generally allow certain sounds and notifications: alarms you’ve set, any media (such as a YouTube video you might be playing), sounds from tapping, and notifications for reminders and events you’ve set in your calendar. By default, only alarms and media are allowed to play in DND mode.
Next below is where we can set how notifications may be restricted.
The first two choices are to simply mute notifications, or to even keep notifications from showing at all, which is the default for DND. The third option is a custom setup, which you can go into by tapping the gear icon here, and you can see all kinds of ways to tweak notification restrictions as you like, if you wish.
Next is setting the Default Duration.
Pretty simple - you can have DND last until you turn it off, and this is the default setting. You can also set it on a timer by units of hours. This is actually an interesting choice, as it can sometimes be easy to forget that you’ve enabled DND, and in the default setting, you’d miss most everything, calls, messages, other alerts, until you remember to turn it off again. The timer helps to avoid this. The third option allows you to make this choice each time you enable DND.
The last configuration panel, Schedules, just allows you to control which parts of Android can enable DND. Given the power of DND, you may want to restrict where and how it can be enabled.
Finally, at the very bottom, we have an internal toggle for DND. A good point to note about DND when it’s enabled - to help you remember that you’ve got it on, you’ll see the DND icon in your status bar on the right-hand side, right up there beside your Wi-Fi, Cellular and Battery indicators - if your phone seems like it’s being unusually quiet, you might want to check for the DND up there!
A final point - when you turn DND off, all of the notifications which you’ve missed will flood into your notifications section, so be sure to run through them and make sure if there’s anything important you need to look into.
And that’s it - the powerful and useful Do Not Disturb mode.
As always, feel free to leave any comments - questions I didn’t answer here, any suggestions, or requests for new tutorials - it’s all welcome. See you next Tuesday!
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