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Most answers to the question "How to disable Action Center (AC)" assume you want to disable notifications as well, but what I'd like to do is make Windows work like the AC doesn't exist, so I would still continue to receive notifications, but in the native format and on the schedule decided by each application individually.

For instance, I would like to see the Outlook original "toasters" when new emails are received that I used to see before AC was introduced.

I could not find any way to do this, even after submitting the question to Microsoft. I tried various ways of disabling the AC but they either stop notifications as well or just hide the icon or action center without changing its behavior.

The reason for this is I find AC behavior very unproductive and quite annoying at times: notifications stop at random times for no apparent reason (unrelated to Focus Assist settings), past notifications start showing one by one with no obvious way to stop them etc.

Ady
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2 Answers2

1

To remove the Action Center:

  • Right-click the Taskbar and select Taskbar Settings
  • Scroll down and click on "Turn system icons on or off"
  • Set the "Action Center" item slider to Off
  • This immediately removes Action Center icon from the Taskbar, while notifications are not affected.

For testing if notifications are still working, you could install the Notifications Visualizer from the Microsoft Store. When running it, click New document. The Pop toast button will create a new notification each time that it is clicked.

harrymc
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0

What I had to get my head around (and it sounds like you do, too) was that that horrible "action centre" now is the native notification system in Win 10.

So you simply won't get the "original Outlook toasters" anymore with action centre around. In other words, I don't think you can do what you want anymore (unless you roll back to pre-action centre times).

For Outlook notifications to not bug me in the action centre, I found this related answer very helpful. I now get a notification when an email arrives (from the action centre), and the icon on the very bottom right shows an item in it (which still bugs me), but it disappears as soon as the notification does. And I can click on the notification to open the email if I want to.

Amos M. Carpenter
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