Mirror Android notifications to a Mac without turning the Mac into a second phone

Mirroring works by forwarding what the phone shows, so the way to keep the Mac quiet is to decide, on the phone, what gets shown. Android's per-app notification settings and its Modes and Do Not Disturb are the levers on that side. On the Mac, everything mirrored arrives under the mirroring app's name, so macOS treats it as one app: you can give it an alert style, silence it in a Focus, or schedule it, but not sort it by the original app. Set the phone first, then the Mac, and test what crosses.

Publisher note: The Relay publishes this guide and is one of the products discussed. Details about other products come from each maker's own pages, checked on 1 October 2026. Prices and features change, so confirm before you buy.

Where does the filtering happen?

The first three layers are Android's, and they work the same whichever mirroring app you use, with the caveat that Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and other makers name the menus differently. Google's pages repeat "Settings can vary by phone" for good reason. The setup of the mirroring itself is in Android notifications on a Mac.

How do I stop an app's notifications on the phone?

Google's page Control notifications on Android gives three ways.

From Settings:

1. Open the phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Notifications, then App notifications.
3. Find the app under "Most recent", or choose All apps from the dropdown.
4. Tap the app and turn its notifications off, or, as Google puts it, "choose from specific categories".

From the notification itself: swipe down, touch and hold the notification, then tap Settings. Google says you can turn off All notifications there or pick which kinds to receive.

Categories are the useful part. A shopping app might have one category for order updates and another for offers; keep the first and switch off the second, and the Mac only ever hears about orders. Turning off a category on the phone also silences it on the phone, which is the trade-off of filtering at the source.

Alerting or silent

On some phones, Google says, you can set a notification type to Alerting or Silent. Alerting makes a sound and shows on the lock screen; silent "won't make a sound or vibrate" but still appears when you swipe down. Whether a mirroring app forwards silent notifications is up to that app, and none of the makers' pages we read answer it. It is the first thing to test below.

How do I quieten everything for a while?

Android's Modes do that. Google's page Limit interruptions with Modes and Do Not Disturb says some of its steps need Android 14 or later.

1. Open Settings and tap Modes.
2. Tap Do Not Disturb, then Turn on now. Or set up Bedtime, Driving, or Create your own mode.
3. In a mode, under Notification filters, choose what to allow: People (calls, messages, conversations, with Allow repeat callers for someone who calls twice in 15 minutes), Apps, and Alarms & other interruptions.

A custom mode that allows calls and messages from a few people and nothing else is a sensible shape for this. Google notes that critical notifications still show, and that on Android 8.1 and earlier the controls live under Sound.

What Do Not Disturb does to mirrored notifications is not documented by any of the pages we read. A silenced notification may still be posted on the phone, and a mirroring app may still forward it. Test it with your app before relying on it.

How do I control the mirrored notifications on the Mac?

On the Mac, the mirroring app is the sender. Apple's Notifications settings page describes the controls per app: Allow notifications, an alert style of Temporary or Persistent, whether to show on the Lock Screen, Badge application icon, Play sound for notification, and Show previews (Always, When Unlocked, or Never). Open System Settings, click Notifications, and find the mirroring app in the list.

Two settings there do more than they look.

• Show previews: When Unlocked. Mirrored notifications can carry message text and login codes. This keeps that off a locked screen.
• Play sound: off. The phone already made a sound. The Mac does not need to as well.

For working hours, use a Focus. Apple's Focus guide says a Focus can "pause and silence all notifications or allow only certain notifications", and under Allowed Apps you can choose Allow Some Apps or Silence Some Apps. It can turn on by time, by location, or when you open a particular app. So a Work Focus that silences the mirroring app during a deep-work block, and allows it the rest of the day, takes two minutes to set up. The limit is granularity. macOS cannot tell a mirrored WhatsApp message from a mirrored delivery update, because both arrive from the same app. Anything per-app has to be done on the phone or in the mirroring app's own settings.

What does The Relay do here?

With The Relay, the phone's notifications appear as Mac notifications. That is the notifications feature, and everything above applies to it: trim on the phone, then shape how the Mac presents what arrives. Your notifications travel directly between your phone and your Mac over your local network, and they are not uploaded to The Relay's servers. The app costs $19.99, paid once, from the download page, and needs Android 8.0 or later and macOS 13 Ventura or later.

When it is not the right tool: if you only want one or two apps on the Mac, their own web or desktop versions give you exactly those and nothing else, with no filtering to do. KDE Connect, whose wiki says "Any notifications you receive on your phone will be shown in your computer", does the mirroring for free; check its plugin settings for what it lets you exclude.

How do I test what crosses in five minutes?

1. Pick a chatty app and set one of its categories to off on the phone. Trigger it. Nothing should reach the Mac.
2. Set another category to Silent. Trigger it and note whether the Mac shows it.
3. Turn on Do Not Disturb on the phone and trigger a notification. Note whether the Mac shows it.
4. Turn on a Focus on the Mac that silences the mirroring app. Trigger a notification and look in Notification Center afterwards to confirm it was collected, not lost.
5. Lock the Mac and trigger a message. Check what the lock screen shows.

Questions people ask

Can I choose which apps are mirrored to my Mac?

On the phone, yes: turning off an app's notifications, or a category within it, means there is nothing to forward. Some mirroring apps also offer their own per-app list; check the settings of the one you use.

Will I get every notification twice?

If an app runs on the Mac as well as the phone, yes, unless you silence one side. That case has its own guide: WhatsApp and chat notifications on a Mac.

Does Do Not Disturb on the phone stop notifications reaching the Mac?

Google's pages describe what Do Not Disturb silences on the phone, not what a mirroring app does with it. Test it, as in step 3 above.