How to clear Ubuntu notifications?

Question

Is there a way to clear the pop up notifications I get from changing the volume, brightness, dropbox updates, etc...?

Sometimes I have to sit and wait for them to go away so that I can continue to work, as they are blocking something I want to click or look at.

I know this question might seem a little naggy but it does indeed lower my productivity sometimes. I don't mind getting the notifications, but I do mind not having a option to clear them.

Any idea how I can do that?

I am using Ubuntu 11.10 (Gnome)

score 13 · Answer 1 · edited May 20 '13 at 01:13

13

Kill the notify-osd program. That'll stop it from notifying until you reboot.

edited May 20 '13 at 01:13

Raja G

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answered Nov 23 '12 at 18:32

Tom White

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score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 11 '17 at 18:59

10

The package responsible for displaying the notifications is notify-osd . You can remove it by opening up a terminal and running the following command:

sudo apt-get remove notify-osd

Fair warning: this will permanently disable all notifications.

If you later decide you want the notifications back, you can run the following command:

sudo apt-get install notify-osd

edited Mar 11 '17 at 18:59

Community

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answered Nov 05 '11 at 18:22

Nathan Osman

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Also, don't panic if you get a warning that the package ubuntu-desktop is going to be removed - it is a meta-package. – Nathan Osman Nov 05 '11 at 18:24
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thanks for your response, but I don't want to permanentely remove them. – nunos Nov 05 '11 at 19:22

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited May 29 '13 at 02:17

5

In Ubuntu 12.04, you can use NotifyOSDconfig as explained here:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:leolik/leolik
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:amandeepgrewal/notifyosdconfig
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install notifyosdconfig

Then you can run the program "NotifyOSD Configuration" from Dash Home. Select the option "Close Bubble on Click" and you are done :)

edited May 29 '13 at 02:17

Raja G

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answered May 19 '13 at 13:23

e18r

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@Raja Does not properly set Timeout or Close on Click. Position changes do work, but not the props of interest. v14.04 – Twisted Pear Feb 27 '15 at 16:49
@TwistedPear To be frank I didnt understand even a bit. – Raja G Feb 28 '15 at 22:46
@Raja. Changing those properties with notifyosdconfig and applying them has no effect. – Twisted Pear Mar 01 '15 at 02:26
@TwistedPear Then post a question with your problem we will try to do our best and this answer is a 2 years old and so many things might have changed these days. – Raja G Mar 01 '15 at 18:29
@Raja. This answer is wrong. It does not work. No new question needed. – Twisted Pear Mar 01 '15 at 22:58
@TwistedPear Flag it. Mod's will take care. I havent posted that answer. As responsible member I am guiding you with what I can. I already did mention that answer is 2 years so it may outdated. If you know a new answer post it. This answer is not wrong , it just doesnt work with current environment. you are just comparing 1940 Ferrari with 2015 model. will they work same ? He cleared mentioned the version Ubuntu 12.04 and you still complaining on this answer w.r.t 14.04. I am just not getting whats the issue then. – Raja G Mar 02 '15 at 00:22
@TwistedPear you are right. This does not work with Ubuntu 14.04. I don't know how to make it work. I'm sorry. If you ever find out, don't hesitate to put an answer here. – e18r Mar 02 '15 at 01:00

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 05 '11 at 18:59

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First of all, the notifications are click-through, and should fade when you mouse over them, so they should not make you wait for clicking/seeing something below.

There is also the possibility to temporarily get no notifications except some specific ones like changing the audio volume. Applications like Totem use this while you are viewing a movie full-screen, for example.

But there is no way to "dismiss" them AFAIK.

(This all asumes you are using GNOME with Unity.)

answered Nov 05 '11 at 18:59

JanC

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I know they are click through but it is still a little hard to read through them, since they don't fade that much, they just blur a little. – nunos Nov 05 '11 at 19:24
It guess it also depends on what is beneath it, but you are right that it might not always be very readable... (I also think they faded more in past versions?) – JanC Nov 05 '11 at 20:07
It might help your productivity to remove some notifications at least: http://askubuntu.com/questions/67500/how-to-disable-notification-from-network-manager (also you can set them to have a lower timeout, so they go away in 4 secs instead of 10, e.g., in system settings->notifications) – unhammer Jan 26 '12 at 19:54
Also occasionally a program (e.g. qBittorrent) will spam hundreds load of notifications. Then they don't go away for ages. Partly a bug in qBittorrent, but I'd say the problem is more with osd-notify. – Timmmm Jun 07 '13 at 17:46

How to clear Ubuntu notifications?

4 Answers4