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Way back nearly two decades ago, I set up an early version of ActiveSync on my Palm Treo device. I noticed there was an option in the Treo email settings to di

Way back nearly two decades ago, I set up an early version of ActiveSync on my Palm Treo device. I noticed there was an option in the Treo email settings to disable real time syncing between certain times (after office hours), but I was SO excited about getting and responding to real time emails on my little phone device that I thought "Who the HECK would want to stop this wonderful flow of emails". Later when I upgraded to the first gen iPhones, I noticed that they didn't have the option to turn off ActiveSync at all. I thought it was odd, but I still didn't mind. Nowadays, I often leave my phone on DND or Airplane mode for large chunks of the day. I am totally sick of the deluge of mail from what is now 6 separate email addresses. I note that iOS 10 still hasn't got the ability to turn off syncing between certain hours that I know of. On top of that, I have alerts constantly popping up from Twitter, Slack, HelpScout, Intercom et al. I think the whole "Work can wait" movement is a good one that needs to be front and center at a lot of workplaces (and a lot of apps). EDIT: Thanks to the responses below, I now realise that iOS 10 DOES indeed have the capability to turn on DND during certain hours only! Winning.

SixSigma 10y ago
I got rid of the smartphone and went back to feature phone. I also have a 7" tablet so I can tether if I really need to. Life is better.
bad_user 10y ago
Why would they want to let you turn off notifications, when that's the thing that keeps you into using those apps? Seriously, companies have psychologists on staff analyzing the behavior of users, with their job being coming up with ways to keep you hooked. Why on earth would you receive notifications for people liking your stupid messages on Twitter or Facebook, if it weren't for our inflated ego craving for those notifications that's making us going back to these apps.
- herbst 10y ago
  Worst on twitter is notifications because 2 people i follow retweetet the same post...
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    It feels that this should be handled by the notification layer. Do not push notifications for things I've already seen.
    - ghostly_s 10y ago
      I think the parent is complaining about notifications that literally say "[X number of] people you follow retweeted this post:[...]", not duplicate notifications.
fredley 10y ago
I am very strict about work hours, and try and get the people I work with to take similar steps. I take steps to limit any possible exposure to work emails, notifications, calls from the moment I leave the office (or the work day ends), which is usually around 6pm. I don't even look at anything until 9am the next day. This has probably annoyed some people along the way, but I don't care, my time is more important to me.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  I used to do that. Made a point to switch mindset when I was crossing out the door of the building and immediately started thinking about my personal projects. It's become much more difficult now that I work remotely and use a single place and computer for both work and personal.
  - gaius 10y ago
    That is actually one of the good things about jobs with a dress code, even if it's only "business casual". You get home, you get changed, and that's a clear line drawn between work-mode and home-mode.
nikon 10y ago
I have disabled notifications for my mail apps on iOS. The counter will increment but I only check them when I feel like it.
- midgetjones 10y ago
  I turned off the counter too. I found that red dot way too stressful.
adamlett 10y ago
iOS 10 still hasn't got the ability to turn off syncing between certain hours You can set Do Not Disturb between certain hours on iOS.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Coolness - I must have been looking in the wrong area (Mail Account Settings). Is there another spot where I can set that?
  - draugadrotten 10y ago
    https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+set+dnd+on+iphone https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+set+dnd+on+iphone
  - adamlett 10y ago
    Settings / Do Not Disturb
  - scott_karana 10y ago
    It's system wide in iOS, so _nothing_ can notify you, not just email :)
Mithaldu 10y ago
There's actually a nice feature regarding that in Google Inbox. It has adopted the approach first featured in Opera 12's mail client: Have all mail pre-filtered into categories with a bayesian (or similar) filter trained by the user themselves. What this means in practice is that you have a bunch of categories for emails that are not urgent, like purchase receipts, ads, mailing lists, etc. and you teach inbox which of the mails you receive belong in there, just through the simple act of moving emails in and out. Emails in those categories don't trigger notifications. And for the kinds of emails you consider urgent, you move them out of the category they're in, let Inbox know "don't categorize this type of mail". Only those trigger notifications. The result of this is that your phone acts like a secretary on your emails. It sorts them into various inboxes for you so you can review them later on, or lets you know if something came in you might want to look at immediately. It's not perfect, sure, it's more akin to a 12 year old playing secretary. However it certainly stems the "tide" without forcing you to cut yourself off entirely, providing a nice medium you can use for normal work time, leaving DND mode for when you actually need exactly that.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Good tip - Yes, I do have this filtering turned on in my two main email accounts, so that sales emails, newsletters, family emails etc. (even some system related alerts) all get filtered into separate folders so I don't get the constant 'dings' and don't see the app notification counter climbing like an F1 car odometer! Google Mail/Inbox is very good at this, and I have never missed any important client emails this way. However, it would be nice if the dings completely stopped of their own accord, say, after 6pm and didn't resume again until about 8am. (I know I can do this manually as other have suggested, but I would really like to 'baby' my phone less and have it figure out these things itself, or let me set it.) After all, if the Google App can work out when I start my car and connect my phone to my car Bluetooth on a Wednesday evening, that I am going to my mom's place for dinner, and it tells me how long it will take to get there, surely it can extend itself to holding off all emails for the evening so I can enjoy a nice family dinner? :-)
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
cam_l 10y ago
One thing I find with google Inbox which makes it indispensable on mobile is the ability to schedule times for notifications for individual addresses, groups and/or folders. Weekly, hourly, never.. whatever.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Nice. I've never dived deep into Inbox and didn't realise you could do this. Thanks for the heads up.
denzil_correa 10y ago
> I am totally sick of the deluge of mail from what is now 6 separate email addresses. I do not use the Mail app in iOS. Rather (ironically), I use Outlook my Microsoft. It has a "Focused" and "Other" Inbox of all your mails. It only notifies you mail coming to your "Focused" inbox which it learns over time. I'm pretty happy about it.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  I still use Gmail/Inbox in the browser on my Mac, or their respective apps on iOS. I am playing with PolyMail at the moment on the desktop to see how I like it. If there is a solution like Outlook's "focused" inbox for macOS I would love to hear about it...
amiga-workbench 10y ago
My Nokia N9 has this feature too, I can set varying sync timeframes on each mail account. I couldn't live without it.
p10_user 10y ago
You can turn off notifications in iOS on a per app basis. I do this for emails.
ghostly_s 10y ago
Funny, I submitted an Outlook for iOS feature request for just such an "outside working hours" setting (I like keeping my work account tied to this app precisely so I can compartmentalize it and not think about work things when I'm on my own time). I guess I should stop holding my breath.
paulryanrogers 10y ago
Best thing about Windows Phone was the email notifications didn't make noise by default.

SixSigma 10y ago

I got rid of the smartphone and went back to feature phone. I also have a 7" tablet so I can tether if I really need to. Life is better.

bad_user 10y ago

Why would they want to let you turn off notifications, when that's the thing that keeps you into using those apps? Seriously, companies have psychologists on staff analyzing the behavior of users, with their job being coming up with ways to keep you hooked. Why on earth would you receive notifications for people liking your stupid messages on Twitter or Facebook, if it weren't for our inflated ego craving for those notifications that's making us going back to these apps.

herbst 10y ago
Worst on twitter is notifications because 2 people i follow retweetet the same post...
- jobigoud 10y ago
  It feels that this should be handled by the notification layer. Do not push notifications for things I've already seen.
  - ghostly_s 10y ago
    I think the parent is complaining about notifications that literally say "[X number of] people you follow retweeted this post:[...]", not duplicate notifications.

fredley 10y ago

I am very strict about work hours, and try and get the people I work with to take similar steps. I take steps to limit any possible exposure to work emails, notifications, calls from the moment I leave the office (or the work day ends), which is usually around 6pm. I don't even look at anything until 9am the next day. This has probably annoyed some people along the way, but I don't care, my time is more important to me.

jobigoud 10y ago
I used to do that. Made a point to switch mindset when I was crossing out the door of the building and immediately started thinking about my personal projects. It's become much more difficult now that I work remotely and use a single place and computer for both work and personal.
- gaius 10y ago
  That is actually one of the good things about jobs with a dress code, even if it's only "business casual". You get home, you get changed, and that's a clear line drawn between work-mode and home-mode.

nikon 10y ago

I have disabled notifications for my mail apps on iOS. The counter will increment but I only check them when I feel like it.

midgetjones 10y ago
I turned off the counter too. I found that red dot way too stressful.

adamlett 10y ago

iOS 10 still hasn't got the ability to turn off syncing between certain hours You can set Do Not Disturb between certain hours on iOS.

cyberferret 10y ago
Coolness - I must have been looking in the wrong area (Mail Account Settings). Is there another spot where I can set that?
- draugadrotten 10y ago
  https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+set+dnd+on+iphone https://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+set+dnd+on+iphone
- adamlett 10y ago
  Settings / Do Not Disturb
- scott_karana 10y ago
  It's system wide in iOS, so _nothing_ can notify you, not just email :)

Mithaldu 10y ago

There's actually a nice feature regarding that in Google Inbox. It has adopted the approach first featured in Opera 12's mail client: Have all mail pre-filtered into categories with a bayesian (or similar) filter trained by the user themselves. What this means in practice is that you have a bunch of categories for emails that are not urgent, like purchase receipts, ads, mailing lists, etc. and you teach inbox which of the mails you receive belong in there, just through the simple act of moving emails in and out. Emails in those categories don't trigger notifications. And for the kinds of emails you consider urgent, you move them out of the category they're in, let Inbox know "don't categorize this type of mail". Only those trigger notifications. The result of this is that your phone acts like a secretary on your emails. It sorts them into various inboxes for you so you can review them later on, or lets you know if something came in you might want to look at immediately. It's not perfect, sure, it's more akin to a 12 year old playing secretary. However it certainly stems the "tide" without forcing you to cut yourself off entirely, providing a nice medium you can use for normal work time, leaving DND mode for when you actually need exactly that.

cyberferret 10y ago
Good tip - Yes, I do have this filtering turned on in my two main email accounts, so that sales emails, newsletters, family emails etc. (even some system related alerts) all get filtered into separate folders so I don't get the constant 'dings' and don't see the app notification counter climbing like an F1 car odometer! Google Mail/Inbox is very good at this, and I have never missed any important client emails this way. However, it would be nice if the dings completely stopped of their own accord, say, after 6pm and didn't resume again until about 8am. (I know I can do this manually as other have suggested, but I would really like to 'baby' my phone less and have it figure out these things itself, or let me set it.) After all, if the Google App can work out when I start my car and connect my phone to my car Bluetooth on a Wednesday evening, that I am going to my mom's place for dinner, and it tells me how long it will take to get there, surely it can extend itself to holding off all emails for the evening so I can enjoy a nice family dinner? :-)
- Mithaldu 10y ago

cam_l 10y ago

One thing I find with google Inbox which makes it indispensable on mobile is the ability to schedule times for notifications for individual addresses, groups and/or folders. Weekly, hourly, never.. whatever.

cyberferret 10y ago
Nice. I've never dived deep into Inbox and didn't realise you could do this. Thanks for the heads up.

denzil_correa 10y ago

> I am totally sick of the deluge of mail from what is now 6 separate email addresses. I do not use the Mail app in iOS. Rather (ironically), I use Outlook my Microsoft. It has a "Focused" and "Other" Inbox of all your mails. It only notifies you mail coming to your "Focused" inbox which it learns over time. I'm pretty happy about it.

cyberferret 10y ago
I still use Gmail/Inbox in the browser on my Mac, or their respective apps on iOS. I am playing with PolyMail at the moment on the desktop to see how I like it. If there is a solution like Outlook's "focused" inbox for macOS I would love to hear about it...

amiga-workbench 10y ago

My Nokia N9 has this feature too, I can set varying sync timeframes on each mail account. I couldn't live without it.

p10_user 10y ago

You can turn off notifications in iOS on a per app basis. I do this for emails.

ghostly_s 10y ago

Funny, I submitted an Outlook for iOS feature request for just such an "outside working hours" setting (I like keeping my work account tied to this app precisely so I can compartmentalize it and not think about work things when I'm on my own time). I guess I should stop holding my breath.

paulryanrogers 10y ago

Best thing about Windows Phone was the email notifications didn't make noise by default.