Stop automatic large right side window from opening & demanding attention

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Level 1

22 points

Stop automatic large right side window from opening & demanding attention

i want to ask what this window is called, the one that keeps opening on the right side of my MBP 2020 with Catalina. What do i call this window? i will include a photo if that is allowed in this form. It's rectangular, it take up the whole vertical length from top to bottom except for the menu bar. At the top it has the words TODAY and NOTIFICATIONS, you can select one or the other. i have no use for either one. On the Today window, it shows Stocks, in a colorful array. it has a window for weather and another one for Calendar, and it takes up that whole side of the screen, and the worst thing it does is, when it opens, erratically, on average about 2 times per minute at night, but not really regular, and sometimes, it doesn't turn on at all for hours.

The bad thing for me is that when it opens, it causes my typing that i'm in the middle of to freeze. I can't type another character until i stop to see what is wrong and then to figure out how to get rid of that stupid window. (i already called Apple Support about this, she tried, we did screen sharing, tried changing some settings, but the ones she really thought would help, she found were already set the way she thought they should be set. it was never figured out what was the cause, or the name of it, or how to stop it, i have a case number but lack of confidence to try again. They'll just tell me to install the new OS. Every time i install a new OS, my life gets worse, so i'm not going to do that.)

i find on Google, there are a lot of reports of this problem so i hope by asking this large community, there might be some tip or some previous experience. I don't need that window. I don't want that window, so i just want to disable it so it won't every open again. Is there some kind of preference file in the Library somewhere that i can just throw away?

One idea i got using Google was, in Finder, you go to View/Hide Side Bar. That was hopeful, but it won't work with the window that's causing my problem. I don't think it's technically a "sidebar." i think it's technically a window. What happened when i tried to use View/Hide Sidebar is that when i opened View, Hide Sidebar and the other hide and save options are all grayed out. Also, just by selecting the view menu, that key pad contact causes the problem right side window to close. In other words, when i'm typing and suddenly stopped in my tracks by that window opening, the only way to continue typing is to tap on the screen anywhere except in that window. that makes it go away. Then i can type again. I do not want to be interrupted while i'm typing. i have thoughts i don't want to lose, i want to concentrate on what i'm writing. Is this some kind of glitch anyone has heard of? there must be some setting but not anything logical that anyone can figure out. i want to be able to set it to hide or disable the opening of the window. Or, i want to remove whatever piece of the OS is causing it to torture me.

Is there a C prompt code someone can give me that will make it go away?

Thank you for your attention. The photo is below. No idea why it came out that large, i have a 13 inch MBP

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Aug 28, 2021 6:53 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,506 points

Aug 28, 2021 7:33 PM in response to jaw444

That's the Notification Center. It shouldn't open randomly, but can be invoked by swiping with two-fingers from the right of your trackpad.

And, you can disable that gesture in the Trackpad System Preferences.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

82,123 points

Aug 28, 2021 7:01 PM in response to jaw444

That's the Notification Center. It shouldn't open randomly, but can be invoked by swiping with two-fingers from the right of your trackpad. Perhaps you are activating it accidentally?

Learn more: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/notification-center-mchl2fb1258f/10.15/mac/10.15

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Answer 3

jaw444 Author

Level 1

22 points

Aug 29, 2021 12:57 AM in response to muguy

i opened the link you posted. at the beginning, it says "Tip: To customize or stop notifications, click the Notifications preferences icon

in the bottom-right corner of Notification Center.

So, it clearly says i can stop notifications? Does that mean i can turn them off so they don't keep coming on, or does that just mean i can stop the one that is currently open? i ask that because i clicked on the link they give for the Notification Preferences where they sat you can go to 'stop notifications' but i don't see any option to stop them. When i click on the notification Preferences icon in the lower right corner of the Notifications Center window, it opens a System Preferences window with the name Notifications at the top. There's no option to turn Notifications off, in general, but there is a long list of applications on the left that I can scroll, and yesterday i went through all of those, highlighting each of them separately as required, and i turned them each off separately with a sliding button and they all say Off except for Find My Phone and Face Time which i uncertainly left on, not sure if that's ok, but even though i turned all the other ones off, also excluding Do Not Disturb because it doesn't have an Off/on button, Having all of those other ones off does not stop that window from opening and stopping my typing. Also, there's no Preference to turn off Stocks that I can see in the Notifications preferences.

The window which keeps opening erratically on the right continues to list Calendar, Weather, Stocks, and Tomorrow, even though i turned Calendar off in Notifications preferences. i get the impression there are no ways to turn this off provided by the OS.

Is there any way to find out a Command line i could type in to disable it?

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Answer 4

jaw444 Author

Level 1

22 points

Aug 29, 2021 1:09 AM in response to Barney-15E

it seems like something i might be accidentally swiping. i tried swiping two fingers across my trackpad from right to left, and nothing happened. the window didn't open.

Thanks for telling me about the Trackpad preference. I opened it and could see that i did not have it checked, so it's been opening the window without that being checked. i checked it/turned it on now, just so i could see how to do it. It's not that easy, it would be easier if i practiced it but i'll probably turn it back off. It's just frustrating that things are not working and the reasons are so hard to figure out. The Notifications Center window keeps opening even when the trackpad preference is not checked. There isn't a pattern i can see to the opening, so it must be something i'm doing that's causing, something unintended. i have it turned on now, it was off 10 minutes ago. i'm trying to learn how to do it consciously. now i can do it pretty well, using that gesture to open that Notification Center and then close it.

Something that bothers me is, when i am typing here and i deliberately swipe to open the Notifications Center, and then i come back to my typing here, after swiping the thing open, leaving it open, when i resume typing, that causes the window to close. Which is good, i never would have had a problem with it if continuing to type had triggered it to close, but in several other formats, including Apple Mail, it doesn't turn off w it's hen i try to continue typing. It will only turn off if i give up using that program i’m writing in and tap on something else, like the desktop or another open app. Then there's the question of why it opened in the first place, since i had that swiping preference off (unchecked). But with that trackpad preference checked, if i choose to open the Notifications center, it will turn off as soon as i start typing again. But i do have to first interrupt my typing to open the window when there’s nothing i need to see on the window. Other than that i don’t need it, it works just like they said it works when they described, smooth—if you want to open that window.

Anyway, thanks for telling about that trackpad preference. i'm not sure how it will help but it's some kind of progress.

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Stop automatic large right side window from opening & demanding attention

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