Windows 11 Notifications Not Showing in the Notification Center? Turn Off Do Not Disturb and Re-enable Them

App alerts, calendar reminders, and email banners aren’t appearing in Windows 11, and the notification center (click the date/time at the far right of the taskbar) is empty.

Why: notifications are delivered by the Windows Push Notification Service, but they’re suppressed when Do Not Disturb (formerly “Quiet hours” / Focus assist) is on, when the master Notifications toggle is off, or when notifications are disabled for the specific app. Do Not Disturb also turns itself on automatically in some situations — full-screen apps, games, display duplication, and for the first hour after a Windows upgrade. Work through these in order.

Fix 1: Turn off Do Not Disturb

This is the most common cause — a moon/bell-with-zZ icon usually shows in the tray when it’s active.

1. Go to Start → Settings → System → Notifications.
2. Check whether the Do not disturb toggle is on. If it is, turn it off.
3. You can also toggle it from the notification center: open it (click the date/time), and select the bell icon with zZ to switch Do Not Disturb off.

Fix 2: Confirm the master Notifications toggle is on

If everything is silenced, the top-level switch may be off.

1. Settings → System → Notifications.
2. Make sure the Notifications toggle at the top is On. With it off, no app can notify you.

Fix 3: Stop Do Not Disturb from turning itself on

If notifications keep going quiet on their own, an automatic rule is enabling Do Not Disturb.

1. Settings → System → Notifications → expand Turn on do not disturb automatically.
2. Untick the conditions you don’t want — for example When I’m playing a game, When I’m using an app in full screen mode, When I’m duplicating my display, or any scheduled time range.

Fix 4: Re-enable notifications for the specific app

If only one or two apps are silent, the issue is per-app.

1. Settings → System → Notifications → scroll to Notifications from apps and other senders.
2. Select the app and make sure its toggle is on, plus Show notification banners and Show notifications in notification center are both enabled.

These two sub-toggles matter: an app can be allowed to notify but still set not to appear in the notification center.

Fix 5: Check for a Quiet Hours policy (managed/work PCs)

On a work or school device, an administrator policy can force Quiet Hours. To see applied policies, open Command Prompt and generate a report:

gpresult /h C:\temp\output.html

Open the resulting C:\temp\output.html in a browser and search for Quiet Hours. If a policy is setting it, you’ll need your administrator to change it. (Create the C:\temp folder first, or point the path somewhere that exists.)

FAQ

What’s the difference between Do Not Disturb and Focus? Do Not Disturb silences notifications. Focus is a separate session feature (Settings → System → Focus) that starts a timer and turns on Do Not Disturb while it runs — so an active Focus session will also hide notifications until it ends.

Calls and alarms still come through with Do Not Disturb on — is that broken? No. VoIP-style calls and alarms are allowed through Do Not Disturb by design. You can fine-tune what’s allowed under Set priority notifications in the Notifications settings.

Banners show but the notification center stays empty. Enable Show notifications in notification center for those apps (Fix 4). Banners and notification-center entries are controlled separately.

Sources: Microsoft Learn — Notifications don’t show in the action or notification center, Microsoft Support — Notifications and Do Not Disturb in Windows