Alert groups (sort, search and clear your alerts)

The Alerts hub files every open alert in one group, so you can go straight to the kind you care about, search, and clear a whole list at once with an Undo. Old routine alerts can dismiss themselves after 24 hours of your active time, but anything that still needs you stays. Nothing is ever lost: a dismissed alert can be restored.

What it is

The Alerts hub used to be one long list. With alert groups on, each open alert sits in exactly one group. The built-in groups are Sign-ins & keys, Security, Money & usage, Agents & sessions, Code & landing, Cloud machines, People & messages, App & this computer, Reports & digests, Tips & what's new, and Other. An alert that fits nothing better lands in Other, so none is ever missing.

You can make groups of your own and file any kind of alert in them, including a built-in one. Your choice beats the built-in default and is kept when the app updates.

Groups only file alerts. They do not mute anything, change who is paged, or touch the on/off switch each alert type already has.

Where to find it

Sidebar. Click the arrow beside Alerts to expand it. You see All alerts and one row per group that has open alerts, each with a count. Click a row to show only that group; click All alerts to go back. The same rows appear on the phone.
Show N empty. Groups with no open alerts are hidden. The Show N empty row at the bottom reveals them, so you can still reach their dismissed history, and hides them again.
Search. Type in the search box above the list, or press / to jump to it. Search matches the title and text of the alerts in the view you are looking at. Clear it to see the whole list again.
Dismiss all. The button above the list reads Dismiss all N. The shortcut is Shift+Delete. It clears exactly the alerts you can see in that view, so inside one group or under a search it clears only those. With two or more it asks you to confirm.
Move to group. On an alert card, open the options menu and choose Move to group, then pick a group (the current one is ticked) or New group to name one of your own. The move applies to that kind of alert from then on.
Settings. In Settings, under Notifications, Alert types has a Group pick and an Auto-dismiss switch for each alert type, and Your alert groups lets you rename or delete groups you made. Under Inbox, Clear old alerts automatically turns auto-dismiss on or off and Clear an alert after sets the hours.
Automations. The notify step of an automation has an Alert group field. Pick a group or type a new name to make one; leave it empty to let the app file the alert.

How it behaves

Dismiss all and Undo

After Dismiss all, a message offers Undo, which brings the alerts back. If some of them fired again or were removed in the meantime, the message says how many came back and the rest are left as they are. The kinds you clear stay quiet for a day. The Inbox sections have the same Dismiss all with Undo.

Deleting a group and moving a type

Deleting a group you made returns its alerts to the group they would otherwise be in. No alert is removed by a group change. A custom group cannot reuse the name of a built-in group.

Auto-dismiss

Auto-dismiss is on by default and is set to 24 hours, anywhere from 1 to 720.

Only your active time counts. The clock runs only while you are using the computer. Time away, overnight or over a weekend, does not count. A snoozed alert, or one held back from you, does not age.
Only alerts the Alerts hub lists. An alert you routed to another hub is left alone.
A repeat starts over. If the same alert fires again, or you restore one, its time starts from zero.
What never dismisses itself by default. Alerts that ask you a question, alerts waiting for you to approve or release something, critical alerts, sign-in and security alerts, and the alerts the app keeps for your safety. You can change this per alert type, but a question is never dismissed.
Moving a type does not remove its protection. Filing a sign-in alert under Other or a group of your own does not let it dismiss itself.
Nothing is lost. An auto-dismissed alert sits in Recently dismissed, is marked as dismissed automatically, can be restored, and does not stop the next occurrence of that alert from showing.

To keep one kind of alert forever, choose Never auto-dismiss this type in the card's options menu, or turn off its Auto-dismiss switch in Settings.

Turning it all off

Alert groups are a Lab feature that is on by default. Turn it off in Settings to see the Alerts hub as one flat list again. Nothing is lost either way.

inbox-alerts.md — what an alert is and how duplicates are kept from flooding you
inbox-hubs.md — how much of your Inbox a hub gets
adding-an-alert.md — how a new kind of alert names its group

Last verified 2026-11-03