How to Expand Grouped Notifications in iOS 12

Apple introduced grouped notifications in iOS 12 to prevent the Lock screen and Notification Center from becoming cluttered. You can easily expand these grouped notification stacks to view, interact with, or dismiss individual messages from any specific app. This guide explains how to view individual notifications within a stack and how to customize how iOS 12 groups your alerts.

How to Expand and View Individual Notifications

When multiple alerts arrive from the same app or conversation thread, iOS 12 automatically bundles them into a layered stack. To view the individual messages:

  1. Locate the Group: Find the notification stack on your Lock screen or by swiping down from the top of the screen to open the Notification Center.
  2. Tap the Stack: Tap directly anywhere on the grouped notification stack.
  3. Browse Messages: The stack will expand instantly, laying out every individual notification in chronological order so you can read each alert separately.

Interacting with Individual Notifications

Once the stack is expanded, you can interact with each alert just like a standard notification:

  • Open an Alert: Tap an individual notification to open the corresponding app or message.
  • Quick Actions: Press deeply (on devices with 3D Touch) or tap and hold an alert to view quick actions, such as replying to a message or archiving an email.
  • Dismiss or Manage: Swipe left on an individual notification to reveal options to Manage, View, or Clear that specific alert.
  • Clear All in the Group: Tap the X icon in the upper-right corner of the expanded stack and select Clear All to dismiss all notifications from that app at once.

How to Collapse the Stack

To tidy up your Notification Center after viewing individual alerts, scroll to the top of the expanded group and tap Show Less. The notifications will collapse back into a single, neat stack.

Changing Notification Grouping Settings

If you prefer to see every notification individually without grouping, or want to group them strictly by app rather than conversation context, you can change the behavior:

  1. Open Settings on your iOS device.
  2. Tap Notifications.
  3. Select the app you want to configure.
  4. Scroll to the bottom and tap Notification Grouping.
  5. Choose between Automatic (intelligent grouping by thread or app), By App (all alerts from that app in one stack), or Off (disables grouping entirely so every notification appears separately).