What's the fastest way to get an alert through Focus mode?
Turn on Time Sensitive Notifications for the Focus you're using. This single toggle lets any app that marks its notification as urgent — banking alerts, package deliveries, calendar reminders — reach your Lock Screen even while Focus is filtering everything else.
Go to Settings > Focus > [pick your Focus] > Apps, and turn on Time Sensitive Notifications, which allows all apps to send time-sensitive notifications immediately. This is separate from the Allow Notifications From list — you don't have to add each app manually, since the toggle sits underneath the apps that can bypass Do Not Disturb, and once it's on, Time Sensitive notifications won't be blocked. If you've ever wondered whether Focus blocks calendar alerts specifically, this toggle is the answer for most calendar apps.
How do you allow specific people or apps through Focus?
Add them to the Allow Notifications From list inside the Focus you want to customize. This is separate from Time Sensitive and gives you permanent, always-on exceptions instead of relying on how an app labels its own alerts.
From Settings > Focus, choose a Focus, then tap Apps (or Choose Apps), then tap Allow Notifications From and select apps. For people, tap People (or Choose People), then tap Allow Notifications From and select from your contacts. You can also turn on options to allow calls from certain groups of people and allow repeated calls, two or more calls from the same person within 3 minutes — useful if someone tends to call twice when something's actually urgent. Regardless of your setup, you can allow calls from your emergency contacts to come through no matter what Focus is active.
What exactly counts as a Time Sensitive notification?
It's a priority tier Apple built into iOS notifications, separate from Focus's app and people lists. "Time Sensitive" notifications are a special class that have higher priority and can break through notification blocks, and they were introduced in iOS 15 alongside the Focus feature.
The catch: it's the app developer, not you, who decides which of their notifications qualify as time-sensitive. Each app has its own definition of "time-sensitive" notifications. If one app is too liberal with the label, you can turn it off per-app instead of for your whole Focus — go to Settings > Apps > [App Name] > Notifications and disable the Time Sensitive Notifications slider, which prevents that app's notifications from breaking through Focus. This is different from a critical alert, which requires special Apple approval — see the breakdown in Critical Alerts vs AlarmKit on iOS.
Why do calendar reminders still get silenced during Focus?
Because Calendar's default notifications aren't automatically marked Time Sensitive, and standard reminders — even loud ones — still route through the notification system, which Focus is built to filter. A meeting alert sitting in a muted Focus is exactly how people end up scrambling into calls late.
This is a known gap between what a calendar app schedules and what an alarm-based system delivers. Standard Calendar and Reminders notifications follow the same rules as any other app: unless you've added the app to Allow Notifications From, or enabled Time Sensitive for it, it gets held back. Pealo sidesteps this by converting calendar events into real AlarmKit alarms rather than notifications — alarms use a different delivery path that rings through silent mode and Focus by design, not by exception list. If you're tired of tuning Focus settings app by app, that's the workaround worth reading about.
| Alert type | Bypasses Focus by default | Requires setup |
|---|---|---|
| Standard app notification | No | Add to Allow Notifications From |
| Time Sensitive notification | Yes, if app supports it | Toggle on per Focus |
| Critical alert | Yes | Apple approval required, per app |
| Standard Calendar reminder | No | Manual exception or a different app |
| AlarmKit-based alarm (Pealo) | Yes | None — built to ring through Focus/Silent |
Can you set Focus to auto-allow alerts on a schedule?
Yes, but only indirectly — by switching between Focus profiles or turning Time Sensitive Notifications on for the specific Focus that's active during work hours or meetings. There's no single global schedule for "allow alerts from 9 to 5"; each Focus carries its own settings.
Set separate Focuses for work and personal time, each with its own Allow list and Time Sensitive toggle, then let them activate automatically. A Smart Activation option on the iPhone can automatically turn on a Focus based on your location, app usage, and time of day, and you can layer manual schedules on top of that per Focus. If you juggle a work calendar and a personal one, see how that setup plays out in Work and personal calendars on one iPhone — the same logic applies to which alerts get through which Focus.
Alarms your calendar sets for you
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