I have to admit that I’m not a huge user of Notification Center, and this applies to both iOS and the Mac. One of the reasons that I’m turned off by Notification Center is the disarray that I see when viewing it.
By default, Notification Center is set to sort manually, which means that you can go into its preferences, and sort each app by hand. That’s fine and all, but it makes for a less than ideal experience when trying to find the most relevant notifications based on time of arrival.
For me, this results in a less than ideal experience when opening Notification Center. If you have a lot of apps enabled for Notifications, it can be overwhelming, because there’s no real logical order to the way they’re sorted. To remedy this issue, try this simple tip, and sort your notifications by time of arrival instead.
How to show most recent notifications first in Notification Center
Step 1: open System Preferences, and go to Notifications.
Step 2: click the Notification Center sort order drop down menu, and select Recents. Alternatively, you can sort notifications by recents by app.
It’s a simple change, but it’s incredibly easy to forget about or overlook. In fact, I always know that this option exists on both iOS and the Mac, but 9 times out of 10, I’ll forget about it and suffer through a bad Notification Center experience.
So try to sort your Notifications by time of arrival instead. I think that you may find that it makes a lot more sense than sorting them manually.
There is one potential caveat, though. If you have a lot of apps enabled for notifications and you receive a lot of notifications, then sorting by time may not be the best idea. Receiving a lot of notifications could result in all of your important stuff getting pushed down to the bottom of the list. Sorting by time is best if you can control your notification influx, disabling apps that push an absurd amount of meaningless notifications.
How do you currently sort your notifications on the Mac? Sound off down in the comments.