#Where the settings actually live
There is no single Dynamic Island settings page on the iPhone 15. Apple never shipped one. The island is a system feature baked into iOS, and the switches that govern it are spread across a few other menus, mostly under the label Live Activities. That naming gap is why so many people search for it and come up empty: they are looking for a control panel that does not exist under that name.
So the first thing to fix is the mental model. The Dynamic Island is a surface, not a setting. It is where iOS chooses to draw active things: the song you are playing, a running timer, a call, a food order on its way. You do not configure the surface. You configure what is allowed to appear on it. Once you hold that distinction, the scattered menus start to make sense.
| What you want to change | Where the setting lives |
|---|---|
| Whether a specific app can post to the island | Settings › [that app] › Live Activities |
| Whether Live Activities show on the Lock Screen | Settings › Face ID & Passcode › Live Activities |
| Now Playing controls for music and video | Whatever media app is playing; the island mirrors it |
| Timers and stopwatch in the island | The Clock app; end the timer to clear it |
| The island's color, size or animation | Not adjustable. These belong to iOS. |
Menu paths reflect iOS on the iPhone 15 as of August 2026. Apple moves items between releases, so exact wording may drift.
#The one setting that matters: Live Activities
Almost everything people mean by "changing the Dynamic Island" comes down to one control, and it is not global. Each app that can post to the island has its own Live Activities switch inside its settings page. Open Settings, scroll down to the app, tap it, and if that app supports the feature you will see a Live Activities toggle. Turn it off and that app stops showing up in the island and on the Lock Screen. Turn it on and it can post again.
This is the real answer to "how do I modify the Dynamic Island." You are not editing the island. You are deciding, app by app, who gets to use it. A sports app posting a live score, a rideshare app tracking your driver, a delivery app counting down to your food: each one asks for the Live Activities permission, and each one has its own off switch in the same place. There is no master list that shows them all together, which is genuinely annoying, so you check them individually as you notice ones you do not want.
The second Live Activities control sits somewhere less obvious. Under Settings › Face ID & Passcode, scroll to Allow Access When Locked, and there is a Live Activities row there too. That one is about the Lock Screen, not the island itself, but the two are linked: it decides whether those live sessions keep showing while the phone is locked. Leave it on and a timer or a now-playing bar stays visible on the Lock Screen; turn it off and the Lock Screen goes quiet while the island can still work when the phone is unlocked.
#Can you turn the Dynamic Island off?
Short answer: no, not fully, and I would rather say that plainly than pad around it. The Dynamic Island is part of how iOS draws the top of the screen on the iPhone 15. There is no switch that turns it back into a plain black pill, and there is no supported way to hide it. If a page tells you otherwise, it is almost always describing how to stop content from appearing, not how to remove the island.
Stopping the content is the useful version of "off," and it is doable. Here is the practical sequence I would run if I wanted the quietest possible island:
- Kill Live Activities per app. Go through the apps you use, open each one in Settings, and switch off Live Activities for anything you do not want tracking in the island. Delivery, sports and rideshare apps are the usual culprits.
- End sessions when you are done. Timers and Now Playing sit in the island because they are active. Stop the timer, close the media, and the island collapses back to its resting pill.
- Quiet the Lock Screen. If your objection is really about the Lock Screen, turn off Live Activities under Face ID & Passcode as described above.
What you cannot do is stop the island from expanding for a phone call, a Face ID prompt, or the microphone and camera privacy dots. Those are system-level and deliberately not user-configurable, because they are exactly the signals Apple does not want an app or a setting to be able to hide. That is a reasonable line, even when it is the one you were hoping to cross.
#What you can and cannot customize
People arrive at the dynamic island iphone 15 settings expecting the kind of knobs a widget gives you: colors, size, which corner it lives in, custom animations. None of that exists. The island's shape, its expand-and-collapse motion, and the way it wraps content are drawn by iOS and are identical on every iPhone 15. No setting changes them, and no App Store app can either, because third-party apps do not get to redraw the system chrome.
What you genuinely control is narrower and more honest to state up front:
- Which apps appear. The Live Activities toggles, covered above. This is your real customization surface.
- What the island shows for media. Whatever is playing controls the now-playing view. Switch tracks or apps and the island follows.
- Interaction, not configuration. Touch and hold to expand, tap to jump into the app, swipe to dismiss where an app allows it. These are gestures, not settings, and I walked through all of them in the guide to Dynamic Island customization.
If your goal is a visibly different island, the realistic options are a home screen aesthetic that plays off it or a third-party wallpaper trick, not a settings toggle. And if you are here because you heard the cutout is changing, the rumored redesign is a hardware story, not a settings one; I dug into what a smaller Dynamic Island on the iPhone 18 Pro would actually change. On the iPhone 15 you have today, the island is fixed and the only real dial is the app list.
#The same idea, on a Mac
One tangent worth naming, because it comes up in the same searches. The MacBook has a notch too, and unlike the iPhone, macOS does nothing with it: no island, no Live Activities, no settings at all. It is passive hardware the menu bar wraps around. A small category of third-party apps adds an iPhone-style island to that space, and I build one of them, NotchBay, so treat the next two sentences as coming from an interested party.
The difference from the iPhone is that on the Mac the whole thing is configurable, because it is an app rather than an OS feature. NotchBay puts now-playing, a next-meeting chip, AirPods battery, Zoom and Google Meet call controls, a clipboard tray and on-device dictation into the notch, and every piece is a switch you can leave off. It needs macOS 26 (Tahoe) and a MacBook with a notch, and nothing appears on an Intel Mac or an external display. If you are on the iPhone 15, none of this touches your phone; it is just the closest thing to "Dynamic Island settings you can actually change," and it happens to live on the other device in your bag.
#Frequently asked questions
Are there settings for the Dynamic Island on iPhone 15?
Not in one place. There is no screen called Dynamic Island in the Settings app. The behavior is controlled indirectly through Live Activities toggles, which live under each individual app and under Face ID & Passcode for the Lock Screen. The island itself has no on/off switch.
Can I turn off the Dynamic Island on my iPhone 15?
No, not completely. The Dynamic Island is part of iOS and cannot be removed or turned back into a static notch. What you can do is stop most things from appearing in it: turn off Live Activities for each app you do not want there, and end sessions like timers and Now Playing when you are done. Calls, Face ID and the privacy dots will still surface.
How do I modify what the Dynamic Island shows?
Open Settings, scroll to the specific app, and toggle its Live Activities switch. That decides whether that app can post to the island. There is no built-in way to change the island's colors, size or animations; those belong to iOS and to each app's own design.
Why can't I find a Dynamic Island menu in Settings?
Because there is not one. Apple filed the controls under Live Activities rather than under a Dynamic Island heading, and split them between per-app settings and Face ID & Passcode. Searching Settings for "Dynamic Island" returns nothing, which is the single most common reason people think a setting is missing.
