How to Disable the Windows 10 ‘Let apps access my notifications’ Option

The Silent Notification Reader

In Windows 10, the Action Center serves as a unified hub for all system and application notifications. To create a connected ecosystem, Windows allows Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps from the Microsoft Store to interact with this hub. Specifically, apps can request permission to read your incoming notifications, ostensibly to sync them to a wearable device, display them on an external monitor, or integrate them into a dashboard. This capability is governed by the “Let apps access my notifications” privacy setting.

While granting this access to your smartwatch’s companion app is necessary for it to vibrate when you receive an email, giving it to generic applications is a massive privacy risk. Your notifications often contain sensitive, transient data: the first few lines of a private text message, a two-factor authentication (2FA) code from your bank, or calendar alerts for confidential meetings. If a rogue or overly aggressive app is granted access to your notifications, it can silently scrape this data as it arrives, long before you even click on it. To lock down your Action Center and ensure that only the operating system handles your alerts, you should disable this global setting.

How to Block Notification Access

You can instantly prevent all Microsoft Store applications from reading the contents of your Action Center via the Privacy settings.

1. Click the Start button and select the Settings gear icon (or press Win + I).
2. Click on the Privacy category.
3. Look at the left-hand sidebar, scroll down to the “App permissions” section, and click on Notifications.
4. In the right-hand pane, locate the master toggle switch situated immediately underneath the text Let apps access my notifications (or “Allow apps to access your notifications”).
5. Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.

Once disabled, Windows will construct a strict firewall around your Action Center. Applications will still be able to send notifications to you, but no third-party app will be able to read the notifications generated by other programs.