I’m trying not to just resist everything new in mac OS right away, but this whole focus concept and do not disturb mode turning on without me asking it to and not having any option to disable it is just too much. I can imagine maybe using this in some exceptional circumstances where it actually occurred to me to do so, but I definitely want it to be a conscious decision.
In the preferences I could find no off switch. I tried setting it to only turn on when I’m in Antarctica and off when I’m not but it didn’t seem to actually work as the little moon icon remained there even after this. I also tried to scheduling it to operate in a one minute window but even after that window elapsed it continued to be in ‘do not disturb mode’. I don’t tend to get a whole lot of notifications nor rely on them much but frankly the idea that they’re being suppressed not under direction from me is infuriating and I don’t want that to happen.
The automatic turning on is definitely a setting you would need to have turned on.
Do you have multiple Apple devices? You might have set them to mirror each other so they all share the same focus mode.
You might have created a shortcut that is attached to an automation to turn it on based on some trigger, (time, place) etc.
Or in the focus mode settings you can click on do not disturb and it should list how it is set up.
On the do not disturb settings page under focus, near the bottom is “on a schedule”.
You can have a time schedule, as well as a smart activation, where it tries to learn when to do it automatically.
For instance gaming focus has learned to turn on when o play a game for like 5 minutes.
If you turn those off and ensure you don’t have an automation in the shortcuts app that turns it on, you should be at only manual control.