The iPhone’s Focus Mode, which is a supercharged version of Do Not Disturb, gets new contextual abilities with the iOS 16 update. Over the past year, Focus Mode has become an integral part of life of users who want to separate work from life, or for specific activities. And now, you can use a new feature called Focus Filters to automatically hide certain messages or emails when a Focus mode is activated, and you can automate that too.
Here’s how it works: Turn on a Focus mode, such as Sleep or Workout, and iPhone can automatically hide messages, emails, Safari tabs, and calendar appointments from your work accounts. Not only will it silence incoming message notifications, but when you open the apps, it will be as if the conversations or messages never existed.
(Note: This is a new feature in the iOS 16 update, which is currently available as a public beta. A wider release is expected in the fall.)
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Go to Settings > Focus and choose the Focus mode you want to customize. In the Focus Filters section, tap “Add a filter.” Here you will see four application filters:
- Calendar: Choose a specific calendar to hide all appointments during Focus mode.
- Mail: If you use multiple accounts in the Mail app, you can choose to hide individual mail accounts while in Focus mode.
- Messages: The Messages app can help you filter messages from everyone except selected contacts. For example, you can use a “Home” focus to only receive messages from friends and family, filtering out messages from work.
- Safari: If you use the Tab Groups feature in Safari, you can choose to hide certain tab groups when Focus mode is activated (this also works for shared tab groups).
Take some time to customize an app filter. When you’re done, tap “Done” and choose the “Add” option to add the filter to Focus mode. You can do this for multiple application filters in different focus modes.