In addition to its standard notification options, Due also offers the ability to use critical alerts, which bypass the ‘Do Not Disturb’ and silent setting on your device, allowing you to receive important notifications.
Turn on Critical Alerts Setting on Your Device
To receive critical alerts on a device, you must first enable critical alerts for Due on that device. Otherwise, you will only receive standard notifications. Please note that if you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone, it will mirror your iPhone's notification settings by default. Therefore, you only need to enable critical alerts for Due on your iPhone to receive them on your Apple Watch.
- Open Due on your iPhone or iPad.
- Go to ☰ [Menu] > Settings > Alerts & Badges.
- Tap ‘Critical Alerts’ under ‘Reminders’ or ‘Timers’ section.
There are three options available:
- None: You will not receive any critical alerts on this device.
- All Reminders / All Timers: You will receive critical notifications for every reminder/timer notification on this device.
- Specific Reminders / Specific Timers: You will only receive critical notifications for reminders and timers that have critical alerts enabled. Please see the section ‘Selectively Receive Critical Alerts For Specific Reminders or Timers’ for more information.
The first time you choose ‘All Reminders / Timers’ or ‘Specific Reminders / Timers’, Due will prompt you for permission to send critical alerts. You will need to grant Due access before Due can send you critical alerts on that device.
Selectively Receive Critical Alerts For Specific Reminders or Timers
You may opt to receive critical alerts for selected reminders and timers only. To enable this, make sure that you have already turned on the Critical Alerts setting for your device and set it to ‘Specific Reminders’ or ‘Specific Timers’ (refer to Turn on Critical Alerts Setting on Your Device for instructions).
Next, you'll need to enable critical alerts for each reminder or timer that you want to receive critical alerts for. There are two ways to do this.
Through the shortcut menu
- In ‘All Reminders’ or ‘All Timers’, touch and hold on a reminder or timer until a shortcut menu appears.
- Tap on ‘Critical Alert.’
- Tap on ‘Turn On Critical Alert’ to turn on critical alert at the default volume. If you’d like to set a custom critical alert volume for this item, tap on ’Use Custom Volume…’.
Through the editor
- When creating or editing a reminder or timer, tap on the bell icon near the top of the screen.
- Tap on the ‘Turn On Critical Alert’ near the bottom of the alert picker.
- Choose ‘Use Default Volume’, or ‘Use Custom Volume…’ to set a separate critical alert volume for this item.
- Tap ‘Done’ near the top of the alert picker.
- Tap ‘OK’ to save the item.
A reminder or timer that has selective critical alert enabled will display an indicator icon marked by 3 exclamation marks (!!!).
‘Continue Playing Sound on Apple Watch’
If you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone, you‘ll find a switch named ‘Continue Playing Sound on Apple Watch’ in the Critical Alerts settings.
This setting is turned off by default. This setting only applies when:
- the reminder or timer has selective critical alert enabled, and
- the alert sound for the item is set to ‘None’.
By default, a reminder or timer with alert sound set to ‘None’ does not play any alert sound on any device. However, by enabling the 'Continue Playing Sound on Apple Watch' option, you can choose to receive the default critical alert sound on your Apple Watch, even if the alert sound is set to 'None.'
This feature is useful for users who only want to receive audible alerts on their Apple Watch while keeping their iPhone silent during critical alerts.
If you do not require this functionality, you should leave the option turned off.
Limitations and Requirements
- Critical alerts are currently only supported on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
- Critical alerts require Due for iOS 23.1.
- To use selective critical alerts, you need to have Due for iOS 23.3 or a newer version installed. If you enable this feature, you’ll also need Due for macOS 23.1 or a later version to synchronize with it.
- Depending on your date of purchase, selective critical alerts may require the Upgrade Pass.