Mystery Notification on Windows: Find Who Sent It

The app named at the top of a Windows notification is the one that sent it. If that name is a browser such as Chrome, Edge or Firefox, the sender is a website you once allowed to send notifications, and you stop it in the browser, not in Windows. If the banner has already gone, press Windows+N and look for it in Notification Center.

Do not click the notification while you work out where it came from. Alerts that say your PC is infected and give a phone number are a known scam; the section on virus warnings below explains how to check.

Read the name at the top of the notification

In Windows 11 every notification shows the sending app's name and icon at the top. Microsoft calls this the attribution area. That name is your best clue. The title and text below it are written by the sender and can claim anything.

Browsers hand website notifications to the operating system to display, as MDN's Notifications API reference describes, so Windows names the browser rather than the site. Look in the text for a web address. If there is none, the browser's list of sites allowed to send notifications is the next place to look.

A closed browser does not rule a website out. Microsoft says Edge website notifications still appear when Edge is closed.

If the banner has already gone

Press Windows+N, or select the clock on the taskbar, to open Notification Center. Notifications are listed under the app that sent them. If one has an arrow next to its time, select the arrow to see the full text.

It may not be there. Clear all removes every notification at once, and the guide to recovering cleared notifications covers what else removes them. If it has gone, write down the time and any wording you remember, and compare them with the next notification of that kind.

Check which apps are allowed to notify you

Open Settings > System > Notifications. The section Notifications from apps and other senders lists every sender Windows knows about. Select one to turn its notifications off, or to keep them and turn off only banners or sounds. Microsoft lists each option in its notification settings guide.

You can also act from Notification Center: select the More button on a notification and choose Turn off all notifications. For a browser this silences every website at once, which is usually more than you want.

If the sender is an app you do not recognise, find it in Settings > Apps > Installed apps before deciding what to do with it. On a work computer, ask your IT team before removing anything.

Stop one website without silencing the rest

The steps come from Google's Chrome help, Microsoft's Edge guide linked above and Mozilla's Firefox help. If the site is open, Edge and Firefox also let you block notifications from the icon to the left of the address bar.

To review all of them at once and keep only the ones you want, use the guide to cleaning up browser notification spam.

Treat virus warnings with a phone number as a scam

A notification that says your PC is infected and asks you to call a number or click a link did not come from Windows. Microsoft says its error and warning messages never include phone numbers. The FTC says security pop-ups from real tech companies never ask you to call.

Do not click the notification, call the number or install anything it recommends. Open Windows Security from the Start menu to check your PC yourself; the guide to Windows Security notification history shows where Defender records what it found. Then block the website as described above.

If you already called, paid or let someone connect to your computer, follow the steps in the FTC's tech support scam guide. If you gave anyone a password, change it, and change it on every other account where you use it.

What a notification log adds

Notification Center holds a notification only until it is cleared. Notification Logger saves each notification as it arrives, with the sender's name, the time and the text, and keeps it after the banner and the Notification Center entry are gone.

When an unfamiliar alert appears, search the history for a word you remember, or filter by app to see everything a browser sent and when. For website notifications the App column shows the browser, so the site can be identified only if its name or address was in the text.

A log starts when you install it. It cannot show notifications from before then.

Frequently asked questions

Method note: Windows and browser steps were checked against Microsoft, Google and Mozilla documentation. Notification Logger details were checked against the app's implementation.