Banish Those Mountain Lion Banner Notifications With A Swipe [OS X Tips]

By

Dismiss Notifications

OK, so maybe I’m too impatient, but waiting for those otherwise-useful banner notifications in OS X Mountain Lion is rather annoying. I’ve long grown used to the Growl-style pop up badge, which has an actual close button on it. The new banner notifications in OS X 10.8 have no such thing, and when I want to click on something underneath them, my ire is quickly aroused. Where’s the Close button!? iMessages gets one, why not general notifications and alerts?

Well, there isn’t one, and that’s just the way it is. Luckily, there is also a way to close these 5-second tests of my patience, though.

When the notification banner pops up, hover your mouse over it. If you’re using a trackpad like me, you just need to swipe to the right with a two finger gesture, much the same as when you’re swiping through a cover-flow-style bunch of images in the Finder, or moving forward and back while using Google Chrome or Safari. Very simple, very easy.

If you’re using a Magic Mouse, it’s even easier. Exactly one finger easier, in fact. Use a one finger swipe to the right, after hovering over the notification window when it pops up. The pesky little thing will go away and you can resume your zen-like exterior of calm.

This will come in really handy when I head up to my Mac Mini and see that all the iMessages I’ve been trading back and forth over the last several days are there in one huge long list. Waiting 5 seconds for each one to disappear is a bit much.

Source: Macworld Hints

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.