Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 April 2018 Update version 1803 with a number of new features and improvements. One of which is called “Focus Assist” a handy feature that allows you to minimize or completely stop notifications when you need to stay focused to get work done, or you want to avoid interruptions during a presentation or while playing an exciting game.

This isn’t a new feature exactly, as it was previously referred to “Quiet Hours” which was available starting with Windows 8.1. However, with windows 10 April 2018 update, the experience has been enhanced and it includes some new abilities. Previously With Quiet hours, the feature was either on or off. But now With Focus assist, you get three options: Off, Priority only and Alarms only. Priority only will disable notifications except for those apps and people you add to your priority list. Alarms only will disable notifications except for, you guessed it, alarms.

How Focus assist works:

• Work the way you want. Focus assist gives you the flexibility to choose when to block interruptions. Turn on Focus assist whenever you want to get things done without distractions, like notifications, sounds, and alerts. Or set Focus Assist to turn on automatically at certain times during the day.
• Stay connected when you need to. You can make sure your most important people breakthrough by creating a priority list of those you always want to reach you, even when you’re working. Or when you need complete concentration, block all notifications.
• Catch up quickly. Find out what you missed while you were heads down on a project. As soon as you finish working, a summary of notifications and alerts appears on your screen.

How to enable Focus Assist

You can quickly toggle Focus Assist on or off from a quick action button in the Action Center. Or, to set up your rules with Focus Assist, just go to display settings > Focus Assist. You have three options here.

1. Off: This will turn off all notifications from your apps, and contacts.
2. Priority Only: See notifications from apps you choose.
3. Alarms only. Hide all notifications, except for alarms.

Alternatively, you can control focus assist using the Action Center context menu. Simply right click on Action Center button in the notification area, Select Focus assist  And Choose from one of the available options:

• Off.
• Priority only.
• Alarms only.

Customize priority list On Focus Assist

Priority Only is what you need to configure, that lets you decide which notifications from apps, calls, texts, and people are allowed to bypass the feature to prevent missing out on an important event. To do that, click on “Customize your priority list” link

Under Priority list, you can manage notifications from three places – Phone, People, and Apps.

The Phone part works only if you have Cortana installed on Android, and linked to the same Microsoft account you have on your PC. Every time you miss a call, text or message on your Android Phone, Cortana on PC send you a reminder. You can further choose to receive all notifications or from one of the following:

• VoIP calls, and calls from a linked phone.
• Text messages from a linked phone.
• Show reminders, regardless of the app used.

People will work with any Windows 10 App which is synced with your contact book and can show notifications.  Here you can select set of contacts for which you want to receive notifications during no matter how busy you are with your work. You can also choose to see notifications from contacts which you had pinned to Taskbar.

Apps can be used for any full-screen experience which includes gaming or watching a movie on NetFlix or VLC – you can add those apps here.

Configure automatic rules to activate Focus Assist.

You can use automatic rules to select the times and activities during which you don’t want to be bothered, and the feature will kick in automatically. you can set automatic rules from Settings > System > Focus assist. Here Under “Automatic rules,” turn on the toggle switch for the rule you want to use, including:

• During these times — Allows Focus assist to automatically turn on or off during a specific time range. Using the “Repeats” drop-down menu, you can set the schedule to repeat daily, weekends, or weekdays.

• When I’m duplicating my display — The enables Focus assist to turn on automatically when it detects that you’re mirroring the screen. (This is a particularly handy feature that everyone should use during a meeting to prevent notifications from popping up in the middle of a presentation.)
• When I’m playing a game — Focus assist turns on automatically to suppress notifications while playing games in full-screen mode. (This option only works for exclusive games using DirectX.)

That’s all about How To enable, configure, and use Focus Assist feature on Windows 10 April 2018 update. What you think about this features, And how it works for you share your feedback on comments below Also Read [Fix] Apps Missing After recent Windows 10 upgrade.

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