How to Turn Off Ring Notifications Without Turning Off the Camera
A Ring doorbell can go off on your phone, on someone else's phone, on the plug-in Chime, on an Echo and in a browser, and each has its own switch. Which one to flip for one phone, one afternoon, a fixed schedule, the Chime or the Echo, and which one to leave alone if you still want the video.
What to know
- Motion Alerts off stops the motion alerts on your phone and leaves the device detecting and, with a subscription, recording. Motion Detection off stops the device detecting and recording, so there is no motion alert for anyone.
- Alerts Snooze pauses Motion Alerts for a set time, for all devices from the crescent moon icon or for one device from its Alerts Snooze tile.
- A Motion Schedule repeats the pause on chosen days; while it runs, the Motion Alerts toggle cannot be switched on by hand.
- A Standard shared user gets notifications and switches them for their own phone, tablet or PC, and cannot adjust device settings; an Advanced user can. A Limited user gets no notifications at all.
- The plug-in Chime and an Echo have their own switches: Linked Chimes and Chime Snooze for the Chime, the announcement toggles in the Alexa app for the Echo.
- With Do Not Disturb on, Priority Alerts decides which Ring alerts still come through and which stay hidden.
The switch you want is Motion Alerts, on the device's own page in the Ring app: menu, Devices, the doorbell or camera, and the toggle at the top of the screen. Off, your phone stops buzzing and the device keeps detecting motion and, with a subscription, keeps recording. Motion Detection, the toggle next to it, does something else: off, the device stops detecting and recording motion, so there is nothing left to alert anyone about. On a doorbell there is a third toggle, Ring Alerts, for the button press itself.
Those toggles cover the Ring app on your phone. The Chime in the hallway, an Echo, another person's phone and a browser signed in to Ring.com each have a switch of their own, which is why turning off Motion Alerts can leave the house as loud as before. The steps below are for Ring doorbells and cameras run through the Ring app, with the menu names as the app shows them; Ring Alarm has its own alert settings and is not covered.
Which switch silences what
Work out where the sound comes from first, because each source has a separate switch:
- Motion Alerts and Ring Alerts. The toggles on the device page in the Ring app. They control the alerts your account gets on your phone, tablet or PC. Recording continues.
- Alerts Snooze. A pause of a set length, for all devices at once or for one device. Motion Alerts stop for that time; doorbell presses and Priority Alerts still come through, and recording continues.
- Motion Schedules. The same pause on a repeating timetable, per device. Recording continues, and the Motion Alerts toggle is locked while a schedule runs.
- Chime Snooze and Linked Chimes. The plug-in Ring Chime, Chime Plus or Chime Pro rings for the doorbells and cameras linked to it, for the events chosen there, and Chime Snooze silences it for a set time.
- Alexa announcements. An Echo speaks for a doorbell or camera when Doorbell Press Notifications, Motion Announcements or the Person and Package announcements are on in the Alexa app, and only on the Echos chosen under Announcement Devices.
- Motion Detection. The master switch. Off, the device does not detect or record motion, so no motion alert goes anywhere.
Turn off Motion Alerts on your own phone
This is the case where you are at home, the doorbell faces the street, and your phone reports every passer-by. The Motion Alerts toggle is four taps away:
- Open the Ring app and tap the menu (☰).
- Tap Devices.
- Tap the doorbell or camera.
- At the top of the screen, switch Motion Alerts off. Leave Motion Detection on, or the device stops recording as well.
On a doorbell, leave Ring Alerts on if you still want to know when someone presses the button.
Whether that quiets anyone else depends on who they are. Standard and Advanced users get real-time notifications, Limited users do not, and of those three only Advanced users can adjust device settings. Shared users turn alerts on or off for their own smartphone, tablet or PC. Our reading is that Motion Alerts and Ring Alerts belong to the account that switches them and Motion Detection belongs to the device: switch off Motion Alerts on your phone and the other phones in the house keep buzzing; switch off Motion Detection and they all go quiet, along with the recording. If you want alerts and your partner does not, each of you sets the toggle in your own app.
Two phones on one account are a different case. The app has no toggle per phone; the switch for a second phone is that phone's own notification permission for the Ring app, in the Android or iOS settings.
If the problem is the number of alerts rather than any alert at all, narrowing what the device reacts to is the better fix. The order we would change the motion settings in, zone first, is in Ring motion settings explained.
Pause Motion Alerts for a meeting: Alerts Snooze
Alerts Snooze stops Motion Alerts for a length of time you choose and then switches them back on. It is the switch for an afternoon of calls with the door in view of the camera, because there is nothing to remember to turn back on.
For all doorbells and cameras at once:
- Tap the crescent moon icon at the top of the Ring app's dashboard.
- Choose the Snooze Duration.
- Tap Start Snooze.
- To end it early, tap the crescent moon again and tap End Snooze.
For one device:
- Tap the menu (☰), then Devices, then the doorbell or camera.
- Tap the Alerts Snooze tile.
- Choose the Snooze Duration and tap Start Snooze.
- To end it early, open the same tile and tap End Snooze.
Two things keep coming through a snooze: doorbell presses, and whatever you have marked as a Priority Alert. If you are home all day and only want to know when the courier presses the button, snooze the motion and leave Ring Alerts on; the phone stays quiet until someone is at the door. Ring calls the all-devices version both Global Snooze and Alerts Snooze; both mean the crescent moon.
Turn Motion Alerts off on a schedule: Motion Schedules
A Motion Schedule is a snooze that repeats. It suits a camera that fires during the same working hours every weekday, and it is set per device:
- Tap the menu (☰), then Devices, then the doorbell or camera.
- Tap Device Settings, then Motion Settings, then Motion Schedules.
- Tap Add Schedule and name it.
- Choose the time frame and whether alerts turn off or on in it, then tap Continue.
- Tap the days it applies to and tap Save.
Recording continues during the schedule, and a clock icon on the device's dashboard shows one is running. While it runs, the Motion Alerts toggle cannot be switched on by hand; the schedule has to be turned off first, which you can do from the list without deleting it.
On a side-yard camera a schedule does its job unnoticed. On the doorbell itself, a schedule means nobody on the step is announced during those hours, every working day, so for the doorbell we would use the snooze on the days it matters and keep the schedule for cameras.
The Chime and the Echo have their own switches
The plug-in Chime rings for the doorbells and cameras linked to it under Linked Chimes, for the events selected there. Ring ties the Chime to those links and to Chime Snooze, and nowhere to the Motion Alerts toggle on your phone. Our reading is that the Chime keeps ringing after your phone has gone quiet until you change the link or snooze it. To change the link:
- Tap the menu (☰), then Devices, then the doorbell or camera.
- Tap Linked Chimes.
- Deselect Motion Detected to stop the Chime ringing for motion, or Rings to stop it for the button, then tap Save.
For a temporary silence, Chime Snooze is under the Chime's own Device Settings: pick a duration from the preset list and tap Save; to end it early, go back to the same screen, tap Turn off Snooze and tap Save. Ring doorbell not ringing inside the house covers the Chime in more detail, including the wired chime.
An Echo announces the door through Alexa, and the switches are in the Alexa app. Tap the lightbulb icon, then the doorbell or camera, and turn off Doorbell Press Notifications for the button or Motion Announcements for movement; Person and Package announcements have their own toggles behind the settings gear on that camera's page. Which Echos speak is set under Announcement Devices, reached through Devices, All Devices and the doorbell or camera; with several enabled, all of them announce. Do Not Disturb on an Echo silences it too, and a shared device, one that someone else owns and has shared to your account, never announces on your Echo.
Motion Detection: the switch that turns it off for everyone
Motion Detection is the one toggle that changes what the device does rather than who hears about it. Off, the doorbell or camera stops detecting motion, so there are no motion events, no recordings and no motion alerts. Ring says Motion Detection has to be on for the device to detect and record motion events.
Use it when you want the device idle, for a contractor's day in the front yard, say. Do not use it to quiet your phone; that is what Motion Alerts is for, and the difference is the recording you would otherwise lose.
Modes can reach the same switch. In Disarmed, Home and Away you set per doorbell or camera whether it records, along with Motion Warning or Smart Responses and Live View, and Ring says motion detection can be off at times while Modes are enabled. Treat Modes as a Motion Detection setting: what a Mode switches off, it switches off for the device, not for one phone.
When the alerts keep coming, or stop coming
If something in the house still goes off after Motion Alerts is off, it is the Chime, an Echo, a browser signed in to Ring.com or someone else's phone, each with its own switch above. Once web push notifications are enabled on Ring.com, they cover ring and motion alerts for every device at the location and keep appearing while the Ring session is active, even with the tab closed. They are set per browser, under Account, Control Center, Notification Preferences, Web, and changing them does not change the app on your phone.
If the alerts stopped and you did not stop them, the cause is one of the pauses above or the phone. Ring lists a Motion Schedule, an active snooze, the phone's notification permission for the Ring app, Focus or Do Not Disturb, and a smartwatch receiving the alert instead of the phone; you might also not hear an alert while you are on a phone call. With Do Not Disturb on, Priority Alerts under Alert Settings in the Ring app decides which alert types still come through; everything else stays hidden until the mode ends. For a Focus mode on an iPhone, Ring points to Apple's own Focus settings, so if you work in a Focus all day we would add the Ring app to the apps it allows, or the doorbell will be silent exactly while you are at the desk. Ring doorbell not detecting motion has the full check, starting from Event History.
Sources
Everything above comes from Ring's US support articles linked below, read in September 2026, with the menu names as the app used them then. How we research explains the approach.
Ring Help, "Managing alerts for Ring doorbells and cameras" (Ring Alerts, Motion Detection and Motion Alerts toggles, Alerts Snooze for all and for one device, both snooze names, Priority Alerts)
Ring Help, "Troubleshooting notifications from Ring" (per-phone notification settings, Focus and Do Not Disturb, the smartwatch, sound during a call, the Global Snooze name)
Ring Help, "Setting up Motion Schedules" (recording continues, the locked toggle, the clock icon, the steps)
Ring Help, "Managing permissions for users" (which permission levels receive notifications and which can adjust device settings)
Ring Help, "Shared Users and Alexa" (shared users switch alerts for their own phone, tablet or PC; no Alexa announcements for shared users)
Ring Help, "How to link a camera or doorbell to your Chime" (Linked Chimes, Rings and Motion Detected, Chime Snooze)
Ring Help, "Managing Alexa Announcements for Ring devices" (Doorbell Press Notifications, Motion Announcements, Person and Package announcements, Announcement Devices, Do Not Disturb on the Echo, shared devices)
Ring Help, "Using Motion Detection" (Motion Detection must be on to detect and record; Modes can turn motion detection off)
Ring Help, "Using Device Modes for Ring Alarm, Cameras, and Doorbells" (recording, Motion Warning or Smart Responses, and Live View per Mode)
Ring Help, "Turning on Push Notifications for Ring.com" (browser notifications on by default for all devices, per browser, separate from the app)
