Notifications

Turn them on

Notifications are off for each service until you turn them on. There are three ways to do it:

• When the service asks. Click its own button, such as the banner Slack shows.
• With the blue Enable notifications button. It shows at the bottom right of a service that doesn’t ask for itself, such as WhatsApp, until notifications are on.
• In the service’s settings. Right-click its icon, choose Edit…, and tick Show notifications.

The first time, macOS asks whether Labaro can send notifications. If you said no, allow them in System Settings → Notifications → Labaro.

Each service is turned on separately, even two accounts of the same service.

Which services can notify

Every service on Labaro’s list can, except Google Drive, Google Meet and Google Sheets, which never have anything unread. Services you added by their address can’t, and the Edit window doesn’t offer it for them.

Turning notifications on also decides whether a service is checked while it’s asleep. One with them off isn’t checked, so its badge stays as it was until you wake it. Sleep and memory has the details.

What you’ll see

Notifications are ordinary macOS notifications, with the service’s name under the title. They’re grouped by service in Notification Center, make the usual sound unless the service asks for silence, and show even while Labaro is in front.

Click one to bring Labaro forward on that service. Slack also opens the conversation. If the service has gone to sleep since, you get the service but not the conversation.

Missed something? Tools → Notifications

Tools → Notifications lists every notification from the last 24 hours, newest first, from all your services. It includes ones a Focus mode held back.

• Click one to go to it, as you would in Notification Center.
• Point at one and click its × to take it off the list, or click Clear All. This doesn’t touch Notification Center.
• Labaro’s own memory alert is listed too.

Quieting them

• One service: untick Show notifications in its Edit window.
• All of Labaro: turn them off in System Settings → Notifications → Labaro.
• For a while: use a macOS Focus mode. Labaro doesn’t have a do-not-disturb of its own, and follows Focus like any other app.

When notifications don’t arrive

• Labaro has to be running. Closing its window quits it. To keep it out of the way, minimize it instead.
• A sleeping Gmail, Slack, X or Instagram doesn’t notify. Its badge stays current, because it’s checked every minute, but there’s no page to send notifications until you wake it. For notifications from one of them at all times, untick Put this service to sleep when it’s idle in its Edit window.
• Other sleeping services notify late. They can only notify while they’re being checked, every 5 minutes.
• Some notifications don’t reach Labaro. A service can send notifications from a background worker rather than from its page. Labaro can’t show those yet.

Troubleshooting has a checklist.