When your iPhone is connected to CarPlay, you see iMessage, SMS, WhatsApp, and other notification banners from supported apps on your car’s display. If you don’t like this, here are two ways to block text and app notifications in CarPlay.
CarPlay text notifications
At times, if you’re driving with your family or friends, some texts coming in may be embarrassing. For example, in my case, it used to feel a bit uneasy to get several quick texts or WhatsApp notifications from my fiancé on the CarPlay screen with the family (parents or siblings) sitting in the back seat.
Similarly, when I’m driving, I like to focus on the road and not let Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram, or other CarPlay notifications disturb me.
Thankfully, disabling these notifications from appearing on your car’s screen is easy.
How to turn off app notifications on your car’s screen
There are two ways to do that.
1. Stop text notifications from showing in CarPlay
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap Notifications.
- Select Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram, or the desired app.
- Switch off Show in CarPlay.
From now on, when you’re using CarPlay and someone texts you via these apps, the incoming notifications won’t appear on your car’s screen.
Note: You’ll see the option for Show in CarPlay in notification settings only if you have connected your iPhone to CarPlay previously.
Must see: How to hide, show, and move apps in Apple CarPlay
2. Enable Driving Focus
The above steps turn off text notifications for all future CarPlay instances. However, let’s say you don’t want to go that extreme, and, on some drives, you want these app notifications on your car’s screen, and in some, you don’t.
To achieve this, you can manually enable Driving Focus (earlier called Do Not Disturb while Driving) during drives when you don’t want notifications.
Additionally, you can set up an automatic reply that will be sent out to the message sender when you’re driving!
Here are two easy tutorials to help:
- What is Driving Focus and how to enable it on your iPhone
- How to customize the auto-reply response of your Driving Focus mode on iPhone
No text or WhatsApp notifications during CarPlay
Use one of the above methods to avoid app notifications when your iPhone is connected to CarPlay. You can choose to permanently turn off Messages notifications or have them hidden only for a particular drive by using Driving Focus. Have a safe and pleasant drive.
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