Disable notifications on the Gnome Lockscreen

Notifications are a fantastic tool to get you to notice when something needs actioning. Android devices have long had the functionality to display them when a device is locked but Linux has only really taken use of this over the past few years. However, not everyone wants people to be able to see them when their Computer is locked. With a quick tweak in the D-Conf editor, you can disable notifications on the gnome lock screen.

Why disable them?

Notifications can either be a help or a hindrance. Other people can not only see them on your lock screen, but many apps notifying can often just build up. Using GS Connect can certainly easily push the count to well over 4 or 5 just for connecting a phone.

Install D-Conf Editor

Warning – Messing with other entries in Dconf can break your system, please be careful!

GUI

Open the software app and search for DConf. It is available as both a flatpak image and a deb file.

Open the app Dconf-Editor from your application launcher

Navigate to: org/gnome/desktop/notifications

Toggle the switch labelled show-in-lock-screen.

Close the window and restart.

Terminal

If you want to change the value by terminal it’s as simple as opening a new terminal from the app launcher (ctrl+t) and typing:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/notifications/show-in-lock-screen false

to re-enable simple enter:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/notifications/show-in-lock-screen true.

Restart the computer and no more notifications in the lock screen.

Do you prefer to be able to see notifications in the lock screen or not. Share your views in the comments below.