How to Set Up Quiet Time and Customise Notification Sounds in Microsoft Teams

Maintaining a healthy boundary between work and personal life is essential in modern hybrid work environments. Constantly receiving work chat pings, channel mentions, and meeting alerts on your smartphone or personal laptop outside office hours causes cognitive fatigue and burnout. To empower users to establish clear boundaries without missing urgent daytime communications, Microsoft Teams includes robust features for Quiet Time and Custom Notification Sounds.

In this guide, you will learn how to schedule automated Quiet Hours and Quiet Days in the Microsoft Teams mobile apps, mute non-working notifications, and personalize distinct notification sounds on desktop and mobile.

Understanding Microsoft Teams Quiet Time

Quiet Time allows you to define specific schedules during which Microsoft Teams automatically suppresses push notifications on your mobile devices (iOS and Android). When Quiet Time is active:

• Silent Delivery: Incoming chat messages and mentions do not light up your screen, vibrate, or play audio chime alerts.
• Zero Missed Information: All incoming messages are waiting in your chats and activity feed when Quiet Time ends.
• Status Visibility: Colleagues viewing your profile see a discrete notification indicating you are outside active working hours.

Configuring Quiet Hours and Quiet Days on Mobile (iOS & Android)

Quiet Time scheduling is configured directly within the Teams mobile application:

1. Launch the Microsoft Teams app on your iPhone or Android phone.
2. Tap your Profile Picture or initials icon in the top-left corner.
3. Tap Notifications.
4. Under the Block notifications section, tap During quiet time.

1. Setting Daily Quiet Hours

1. Toggle the Daily quiet hours switch to On.
2. Tap the From time picker and set your evening cut-off time (e.g., 18:00 or 6:00 PM).
3. Tap the To time picker and set your morning start time (e.g., 08:30 or 8:30 AM).
4. Teams will now automatically mute all mobile notifications between these hours every day.

2. Setting Weekend Quiet Days

1. Beneath the Quiet Hours schedule, locate Quiet days.
2. Toggle the switch to On.
3. Select your standard non-working days (e.g., select Saturday and Sunday).
4. Teams will remain completely silent on mobile throughout the selected days until Monday morning.

Customising Notification Sounds in Teams on Desktop

In busy open-plan offices or while multitasking across multiple desktop monitors, hearing Microsoft’s generic default chime makes it difficult to discern between a low-priority channel post and a direct high-priority chat. The new Microsoft Teams client allows customising sound profiles.

1. Open Microsoft Teams on Windows or macOS.
2. Click the Settings and more (…) icon in the upper-right title bar next to your profile photo.
3. Select Settings.
4. Click Notifications and activity in the left-hand menu.
5. Scroll down to the Sound section.
6. You have several configuration options:
   • Play sound with incoming calls: Toggle on or off, and select your preferred ringtone melody from the drop-down list.
   • Play sound with notifications: Choose between the classic Teams chime or alternative modern tones to minimize auditory fatigue.
   • Call ringtone selection: Assign distinct ringtones for direct incoming calls, forwarded calls, and delegated calls to know who is calling before picking up.

Configuring Desktop Notification Style (Windows vs. Mac)

Teams allows you to toggle how notifications appear on your operating system:

1. In Settings > Notifications and activity, locate Notification style.
2. Select between:
   • Teams built-in: Displays custom Teams banners in the bottom-right corner of your display.
   • Windows / Mac native: Routes notifications through the Windows Action Centre or macOS Notification Centre. This integrates Teams directly with native OS Focus Assist, Do Not Disturb, and Focus Modes.

Troubleshooting Teams Notification Alerts

Notifications Still Arrive During Quiet Hours

If urgent messages bypass Quiet Time, verify your Urgent Messages setting:

• When a colleague marks a message with the Urgent flag (which notifies recipients every two minutes for twenty minutes), it overrides standard Quiet Hours by default.
• To disable this override, navigate to Profile > Notifications > During quiet time > Allow urgent messages and toggle it off.

No Sound Plays on Desktop Notifications

If banner alerts appear visually but produce no sound:

• Verify that your computer’s audio output is not muted or routed to disconnected Bluetooth headphones.
• Check whether Windows 11 Focus or macOS Focus / Do Not Disturb mode is active, which silences desktop alert chimes automatically.