How to Completely Disable Siri Suggestions on the Mac Lock Screen

Siri Suggestions on macOS are designed to proactively anticipate what you might need, offering calendar alerts, app recommendations, and reminders based on your daily habits. However, having these notifications pop up directly on your Mac’s lock screen poses a significant privacy risk. Anyone walking past your computer can read your upcoming appointments, private reminders, or suggested contacts without needing to enter your password.

If you prefer to keep your personal information completely hidden until you are actively logged in, you should disable Siri from displaying suggestions on the lock screen. This setting is buried within the Notifications menu, not the Siri settings pane where most users assume it would be.

Disabling Lock Screen Suggestions

To stop Siri from surfacing private information when your Mac is locked, follow these steps. These instructions apply to macOS Ventura, Sonoma, and newer versions featuring the redesigned System Settings interface.

1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen.
2. Select System Settings from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Notifications.
4. Look at the main panel on the right side under the “Application Notifications” section.
5. Scroll down the list until you find Siri Suggestions and click on it.
6. You will see several toggle switches controlling how Siri notifications behave. Locate the toggle labelled Show notifications on lock screen.
7. Click the switch to turn it Off (the switch will turn from green to grey).

Preventing Suggestions from Waking Your Mac

Even if you hide the content of the notifications from the lock screen, Siri Suggestions might still cause your Mac’s screen to physically wake up and turn on when a new suggestion arrives, unnecessarily draining battery life on MacBooks.

1. While still in the Siri Suggestions notification menu from the steps above, look for the toggle labelled Show in Notification Centre. Turning this off prevents the suggestions from cluttering your sidebar.
2. More importantly, look for the toggle (or checkbox on older versions) for Play sound for notification and disable it.
3. Finally, to ensure no suggestions wake the display, you can disable the Allow Notifications toggle at the very top of this menu entirely. This completely prevents Siri from proactively interrupting you with suggestions, keeping your lock screen dark and entirely private.