There are times when you don't want to be disturbed by anything in your life, especially not by the notifications on your smartphone. Maybe you want to do your work without being interrupted, or maybe you just want to sleep without hearing Facebook notifications all the time. Fortunately, Windows 10 Mobile offers a feature called Quiet hours , that does just what it says: it silences your smartphone during the time frame you specify. Here's how to use and configure the Quiet hours on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone:
How to enable or disable Quiet hours on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone
Unlike Windows 10 for PCs, Windows 10 Mobile offers you the option to not only turn Quiet hours On or Off , but also to configure them to your liking. Unfortunately, the Quiet hours feature and its settings are available in Windows 10 Mobile only if you have Cortana enabled. If you don't, there are no Quiet hours for you.
Let's start by seeing how to enable or disable the Quiet hours. On your smartphone's Start screen, slide your finger from the top of the screen downwards. This action will open the Notifications screen and, on it, you will see a series of Quick actions. Tap the Expand button from the bottom right corner of the Quick actions section.
Among all the Quick actions available on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone, you should also find a Quiet hours button. This is how it looks when the feature is turned Off :
Tap the Q uiet hours button to turn the feature On right now .
Now that we know how to manually enable or disable Quiet hours on a smartphone with Windows 10 Mobile, let's see what settings are available for this feature and how we can configure for them.
How to get to the configuration options of the Quiet hours on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone
As we mentioned earlier, Quiet hours works only if Cortana is enabled. Even more, the settings of the Quiet hours are all managed by Cortana. To get to them, you will have to start by opening Cortana. To do that, tap the Search button on your smartphone or tap on her shortcut from the Apps screen.
Tap on Cortana's menu icon from the top left corner of the screen. It looks like three stacked lines.
Tap on the Notebook.
Now you'll see a long list of things you can configure in Cortana. Right after About Me , you'll see the Quiet Hours entry. Tap on it.
Windows 10 Mobile will now load a screen with all the settings you can configure about the Quiet hours.
How to configure the Quiet hours on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone
The first thing on this screen is a switch called "Right now" that you can use to turn the Quiet hours On or Off. It does the same thing as the Quiet hours button from the Notifications screen of which we've talked about at the beginning of this guide.
Then there are the "Automatic rules" which, by default are not configured. But, if you want to, you can set your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone to automatically switch the Quiet hours On and Off in a time frame you specify. To do that, turn the "Automatic rules" switch On. By default, Quiet hours in Windows 10 Mobile are set between 11 PM and 8 AM.
If you want the Quiet hours to be enabled during another timetable, enter the times you prefer. Note that, besides hours, you can select the Quiet hours to be turned On in any or all days of the week, from Monday to Sunday.
How to set who and what gets through Quiet hours on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone
The Quiet hours also include a set of so called Breakthrough rules. The first thing in these rules is a Breakthrough list , which you can open by tapping on the Edit breakthrough list.
When Quiet hours are On , you don't normally get notifications from anyone. However, if there are people that you'd like to hear from even during Quiet hours , you should Add them to your Breakthrough list. Windows 10 Mobile will ignore Quiet hours for these people.
In addition to the Breakthrough list , Windows 10 Mobile can also be set so that you can be reached by people by phone or by SMS, in certain situations. When it comes to phone calls, you can configure Quiet hours to be ignored by your smartphone if somebody "[...] calls twice in 3 minutes" , regardless if they are in your Breakthrough list or not.
Secondly, you can also set Quiet hours to be ignored completely when it comes to phone calls, and let "People on the [Breakthrough] list ring through".
In the case of text messages, Windows 10 Mobile lets you configure Quiet hours so that "Texts from people on the [Breakthrough] list get through" to you, or "No one can break through".
Finally, if you want to, you can set your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone to automatically "Send a text to contacts who aren't allowed through saying that [you're] busy right now". The text they'll get is "Hi, [your first name] is busy and may not respond right away.".
And these are all the settings you can configure for the Quiet hours in Windows 10 Mobile.
Conclusion
Now that you know what Quiet hours are, what they do and how you can configure them, there's a question we'd like to ask you: will you take advantage of this feature from your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone? Or do you find the Quiet hours to be of no use to you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
