PS5

With the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, Sony added new notification features such as activity challenges, accolades and wish list updates. On top of existing features that were brought over from the PlayStation 4, you could end up getting a lot of pop-up notifications that may distract you when you are playing a game, live streaming a game or watching a video.

If you are interested in disabling pop-up notifications on PS5, you can take the following steps in this guide at Seeking Tech:

1. After turning on your system, you have to select a user profile to enter into the main system menu.

2. In the main menu, scroll up and then right until you see the “Settings” icon, which looks like a gear. Select it to enter into the “Settings” menu.

3. In “Setting,” select “Notifications.”

4. In the “Notifications” menu, you will see the “Allow Pop-Up Notifications.” With this option enabled (which is indicated by a white circle to the right of the wording), you will get pop-up messages. With this disabled (which is indicated by a transparent circle to the right of the wording), you won’t get any kind of pop-ups.

5. If you would like to turn on some notification types but want to turn off others, you should enable “Allow Pop-Up Notifications.”

How to change pop-up notifications for when friends on online on PS5

To change how you get notifications whenever your friends are logged into the PlayStation Network online service, you need to select the “When Friends Go Online” option from the “Notifications” menu.

In the “When Friends Go Online” sub-menu, you have the following customization options:

1. “Show Pop-Ups,” which gives you the option to completely disable all pop-up messages for this type of notification. If you want these messages to appear in certain circumstances, you should enable this option.

2. “During Games,” which lets you decide whether or not you want to enable this type of notification when you are playing a videogame.

3. “During Videos,” which lets you decide whether or not you want to enable this type of notification when you are watching a video.

4. “During Broadcasts,” which lets you decide whether or not you want to enable this type of notification when you are live streaming a videogame.

5. With the “When Friends Go Online”, you can also customize the settings to only allow pop-up notifications from certain friends. You can choose who to allow or disallow with the “Friends That Notify You” option.

How to change game pop-up notifications on PS5

The “From Games” sub-menu from the “Notifications” menu lets you choose when you can disable pop-up messages from videogames. These customization options are the same as above as you have “Show Pop-Ups,” “During Games,” “During Videos” and “During Broadcasts.”

With the “Games That Notify You” option, you will be able to allow or disallow which videogame you would like to get pop-up notifications from.

How to change other pop-up notifications on PS5

You can also customize other pop-up notification types in the “Notifications” menu. With the other options, you will have the same customization options as we mentioned above: “Show Pop-Ups,” “During Games,” “During Videos” and “During Broadcasts.”

You can take a look at the other types below:

1. “Game Invitations” will notify you whenever you receive an invite to join an online game.

2. “Trophies” will alert you whenever you unlock a trophy in a videogame.

3. “Activity Challenges” will notify you when you get new game challenges.

4. “Friend Requests” will alert you when you receive a friend request.

5. “Messages” will notify you when you receive a message.

6. “Voice Chat” will alert you when a friend wants to start a voice chat session with you.

7. “Accolades” will notify you when you receive accolades from other players.

8. “Song Change” will alert you when a song starts to play.

9. “Downloads and Copies” will notify you the status of downloads and installations.

10. “Uploads” will alert you the status of uploads.

11. “Wishlist Updates” will notify you of updates for games and other products you have on your wishlist.

12. “From PlayStation” will alert you of news and updates straight from the PlayStation Team.

13. “Subscriptions” will notify you of updates from subscription services such as PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus.

If you haven’t heard already, owners of the PlayStation 5 and/or PlayStation 5 Digital Edition are reporting issues with the new videogame systems. Many believed that some of these are caused by the rest mode.

If you want to be cautious, you can follow this guide at Seeking Tech to disable and avoid using the PS5’s rest mode.

What is rest mode on PS5?

Rest mode lets your PlayStation 5 run in a low-powered state, allowing you to boot up your system faster in addition to letting you pick up where you left off in a videogame.

In rest mode, your PS5 can also supply power to USB ports, which you can use to recharge your DualSense controller.

Furthermore, the system will also stay connected to the internet so that it can download update files, update content and backup your saved data to a cloud server.

Last but not least, you can access your PlayStation 5 remotely in rest mode as you can use the PlayStation App on your phone or the Remote Play feature on other devices.

In remote access, you can buy and download games.

With Remote Play, you can play PlayStation 5 videogames on supported devices like you PC, PS4 or smartphone.

How to manually avoid putting your PS5 in rest mode

To make sure you don’t manually put your PlayStation 5 in rest mode, you have to make sure to completely turn your system off.

To do so with your DualSense controller, press the PS button to bring up a pop-up menu. From there, navigate down to access the control center. Scroll right until you see the “Power” setting.

Once you select “Power,” you will be given three choices: “Enter Rest Mode,” “Turn Off PS5” and “Restart PS5.” Choose the “Turn Off PS5” to completely shut down your system.

You will be able to tell that your PlayStation 5 is turned off if the console isn’t displaying any light.

If your console is displaying a white light, it means that the PS5 is turned on.

If it is displaying orange light, it means that the PlayStation 5 is in rest mode.

Disabling Rest Mode Features

There are also a few rest mode features that you can disable.

How to disable Remote Play on PS5

To disable Remote Play on the PlayStation 5, first power on your system and then log in with a user to enter the main system menu.

From there, select “System” and then “Remote Play”.

If the “Enable Remote Play” option is already turned on (you can tell that this is the case when the circle to the right of the wording is white) then you can select it to turned it off (by doing so, the circle will become transparent and move to the left).

How to disable automatic rest mode on PS5

In order to disable your PS5 from automatically entering into rest more after a set amount of time of inactivity, head to the aforementioned “Settings” menu and then select “System.”

In the “System” menu, select “Power Saving” and then “Set Time Until PS5 Enters Rest Mode.” In this menu you can set the time for “During Media Playback” and “While Playing Games.”

For “During Media Playback,” you can pick between “After 1 Hour,” “After 2 Hours,” “After 3 Hours,” “After 4 Hours,” “After 5 Hours” and “Don’t Put in Rest Mode.”

For “While Playing Games,” you can pick between “After 20 Minutes, “After 1 Hour,” “After 2 Hours,” “After 3 Hours,” “After 4 Hours,” “After 5 Hours” and “Don’t Put in Rest Mode.”

You should set “Don’t Put in Rest Mode” for both “During Media Playback” and “While Playing Games” settings.

How to disable other rest mode features on PS5

To disable rest mode features on the PlayStation 5, go to the aforementioned “Settings” menu and head to “System.”

In the “System” menu, select “Power Saving” and then “Features Available in Rest Mode.” In this menu you have the following options:

The “Supply Power to USB Ports” setting allows you to recharge accessories such as DualSense. You have multiple options with this setting: “Always,” “3 Hours” and “Off.” Set “Supply Power to USB Ports” to “Off.”

The “Stay Connected to the Internet” setting allows you to download update files, download update content and back up save data to the cloud in rest mode. If this is turned on (which is indicated by a white circle to the right of the wording), you need to select this setting to turn it off.

The last setting is “Enable Turning On PS5 from Network,” which lets you power on your system over the internet via the PlayStation App or Remote Play. If this is enabled (which is indicated by a white circle to the right of the wording), you can disable the setting by selecting it. If you already disable the above-mentioned “Enable Turning On PS5 from Network” setting, then the “Stay Connected to the Internet” setting should automatically be disabled as well.

With the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, Sony can collect data on your activities, including your voice.

If you don’t want your personal data to be collected on the PS5, you can follow this guide at Seeking Tech to disable these features.

Accessing the “Privacy” menu in PS5

The data collection settings can be accessed from the “Privacy” menu.

To get there, you first have to select a user profile to enter the main system menu.

From there, go up and the scroll right until you see the “Settings” option, which has a gear symbol. Select that option with the X button on your DualSense to enter the “Settings” menu.

In “Settings,” select “Users and Accounts.”

In the “Users and Accounts” menu, select “Privacy.”

How to limit the data you provide to PS5

One of the settings in the “Privacy” sub-menu is “Data You Provide.”

You have two options here with the default one being “Full,” which means that you will share behavioral data to Sony so that they can improve and personalized your experiences with the PlayStation 5. The other option is “Limited,” which means that you will only share data to help improve the core features and services on the PS5.

The best option here is “Limited.” Although you will still be sharing data, it won’t be your personal behavioral data.

Personalization

One of the other settings in the “Privacy” sub-menu is “Personalization.” With this option, you can activate or deactivate the following:

1. “Personalized Purchase Recommendations” will allow the PlayStation Store to show you personalized product and service recommendations. This incorporates both the data collected by Sony as well as data collected from third-party sources. Keep in mind that even if you disable this feature, you will still get product and service recommendations although these will be less personalized.

2. “Personalized Advertising” will allow Sony to show you personalized ads in their products, their services, third-party applications and third-party websites. Even if you disable this, you will still get advertisements although the ads won’t be personalized.

3. “Personalized Media” will allow Sony to show personalized video and music recommendations in media services and applications integrated on the PlayStation 5. If disabled, you may still get personalized recommendations although it won’t be from Sony; instead, the media services and applications may use their own data on you to pull recommendations.

4. “Standard Personalization” will allow Sony to show you general non-commercial personalization. If you disable this setting, you will still get some features that are personalized although they will be less relevant.

To reduce the data collecting as much as possible, we recommend disabling “Personalized Purchase Recommendations,” “Personalized Advertising,” “Personalized Media” and “Standard Personalization.”

You can disable or enable these settings by selecting them from the “Personalization” menu. You will know if a setting is disabled when the circle next to the wording is transparent and moved to the left.

We should also note that if you disable “Standard Personalization,” you will automatically disable “Personalized Purchase Recommendations,” “Personalized Advertising” and “Personalized Media” as well.

How to disable voice data collection on PS5

You can also turn off the voice data collection on your PlayStation 5.

To do so, head to the aforementioned “Settings” menu and then select “Privacy.” From there, select “Voice Data Collection.”

In the “Voice Data Collection” menu, you have two choices. “Allow” means that you will be granting Sony permission to analyze your voice data in order to help improve voice features. The company won’t be recording your voice chat. The other option is “Don’t Allow,” which means that you won’t be sharing your voice data.

To disable voice data collection, select “Don’t Allow.” Keep in mind that even if you disable this setting, you can still use voice-related features.

The PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition are backwards compatible with a vast majority of PlayStation 4 video games. Some of these games feature an upgrade option (where you can get the PS5 version of the same game if you already own the PS4 version) or cross buy option (where you can get both the PS4 and PS5 versions when you purchase a game).

Sony doesn’t exactly make it obvious which version of the game you are playing in the hub area of the system menu. If you are having trouble figuring this out, you can follow this guide at Seeking Tech.

Method #1

The first method is to scroll to the game from the main system menu. To the right of the game’s icon, you will see the plain text version of the game’s title. If you are playing the PS4 version, you will see “PS4” to the right of the title.

Method #2

The second method is by pressing the “Options” button on your DualSense (which has three horizontal lines and located directly left of the Triangle button) when you highlight the game in question from the main system menu. In the new submenu, scroll down and select “Game Version.” The current version of the game is displayed with a checkmark next to it.

How to switch between the PS4 and PS5 version of a game

To switch from the PS4 version to the PS5 version of a game and vice versa, first make sure you are on the main system menu. Afterwards, navigate to the game you want to switch.

With the game in question highlighted, press the “Options” button on your controller to bring up a submenu. In here, select “Game Version,” which shows what version of the game is currently being played on the PlayStation 5 via a check mark.

To switch to the other version, you first highlight it and then confirm your selection by pressing the X button on your controller. Keep in mind that you may have to download the version you selected if you haven’t done so already.

How to delete one version of a game

To delete one version of a game, first make sure you are in the main system menu. You can then navigate to the game.

With the game highlighted, press the “Options” button on your controller to bring up a submenu. Afterwards, select “Delete.”

If done correctly, you will be brought to the “Delete” screen. In here, you can select which version to remove from storage. Be default, both the PS4 and PS5 versions are selected. So, make sure you deselect the version you want to keep on your storage.

The PlayStation 5 is compatible with 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray, which is a first for Sony gaming systems. The new console also supports a lot more other media discs as well, according to its safety guide.

You can take a look at the list in this guide at Seeking Tech.

Compatible Media Discs

In addition to the aforementioned 4K UHD, the PS5 can also play Blu-Rays and DVDs. You can find a list of compatible media discs below:

• 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray
• Blu-Ray
• BD-ROM
• BD-R
• BD-RE 2.0 or later
• DVD-ROM
• DVD+R
• DVD+RW
• DVD-R
• DVD-RW
• AVCHD

Compatible Game Discs

With the PlayStation 5, you will be able to play PS5 Format Ultra HD Blu-Ray game discs and PS4 Format Blu-Ray game discs. In order to play physical PlayStation 4 videogames on the PlayStation 5, the PS4 games need to be compatible with the PS5.

Region Codes for U.S. PS5

You can find the region codes for the supported Blu-Ray media discs, DVD media discs and PS4 Blu-Ray discs for the U.S. region of the PlayStation 5 below:

• Blu-Ray Disc: A
• DVD: 1 and All
• PlayStation 4 Blu-Ray Disc: 1 and All
• Incompatible Media Discs

There are also a sizeable lists of incompatible media discs, the biggest of which is CD-ROM. You can take a look at the list below:

• BD-RE 1.0
• CD-ROM
• DVD-A
• SACD
• 8cm discs
• Cracked discs
• Deformed discs
• Repaired discs
• Discs with stickers attached
• Discs with paper attached
• Non-circular discs

If you have a DualDisc, the PlayStation 5 can only play the DVD video side and not the CD audio side.

Incompatible Game Discs

The PlayStation 5 is not backwards compatible with PS1, PS2 and PS3 games. So, the fifth Sony home console won’t be able to play the following discs from previous generations:

• PlayStation Format CDs
• PlayStation 2 Format CDs
• PlayStation 2 Format DVDs
• PlayStation 3 Format Blu-Ray Discs

We should also note that the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Is not compatible with any media discs or game discs as it does not come with a disc drive. Furthermore, discs that have scratches, dust particles and/or incompatible recording process may not play on the PS5.

The PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition automatically enable screenshot and video clip recording every time you earn a trophy. This can be troublesome as these media will take up space on the internal solid state drive on your system.

Fortunately, you can disable trophy screenshot capture and video clip recording.

To do so, you can take the following steps in this guide at Seeking Tech:

1. After turning on your PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, select a user to bring up the system menu.

2. In the system menu, navigate upwards and then scroll right until you see “Settings” (which has a gear symbol) and the X button on your DualSense to enter it.

3. Under the “Settings” menu, scroll down to “Captures and Broadcasts” and select it.

4. In the “Captures and Broadcasts” menu, scroll down and select the “Trophies” section.

5. In the “Trophies” submenu, you have three options: “Save Trophy Screenshots” (automatically take a screenshot when you earn a trophy), “Save Trophy Videos” (automatically record a video clip when you earn a trophy) and “Trophy Video Duration” (which lets you record videos in duration of 15 seconds or 30 seconds).

6. To disable “Save Trophy Screenshots”, press the X button with that option highlighted. To disable “Save Trophy Videos,” press the X button with that option highlighted. You will know if these options are disabled when the white circle next to them become transparent and move from right to left. When you disable “Save Trophy Videos,” the “Trophy Video Duration” option will also disappear.

How to delete PS5 trophy screenshots and video clips

1. You can also delete your existing trophy screenshots and video clips. To do so, you can take the following steps:

2. In the “Settings” menu, scroll down to the “Storage” option and select it.

3. In the “Storage” menu, select “Console Storage” and then down until you see “Media Gallery.” Press X to enter it.

4. In “Media Gallery,” scroll right to the “Trophies” tab.

5. You can now select any individual screenshot or video clip you want to delete.

6. With the screenshot or video clip highlighted, you can then press the “Options” button on your DualSense (the button with the three horizontal lines directly to the left of the Triangle button). You then select the option to delete that file from the storage drive.

7. Alternatively, you can scroll to the left to the “Select Multiple” (which has a check symbol) to select multiple media files simultaneously. You can scroll all the way right to the “Select All” option. After making you selection, scroll right to the menu and then down to “Delete” in order to remove the media files.

If you want to turn off automatic renewal for your PlayStation Plus service directly on your PlayStation 5, you can follow this guide at Seeking Tech.

About PlayStation Plus

The PlayStation Plus is a subscription service for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.

You need to be a member in order to play most multiplayer games online. You will also get access to select games, which are added on a monthly basis, in addition to exclusive discounts and other benefits.

About PlayStation Plus Auto-Renew

Automatic renewal is enabled by default. Even if you turn off auto-renew, PlayStation will turn it back on every time you decide to re-subscribe or extend your subscription.

Turning Off PlayStation Plus Auto-Renew on PS5

To turn off the auto-renew option of the PlayStation Plus on PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, you can take the following steps:

1. After powering on your PS5 or PS5 Digital, select the user that has an active PlayStation Plus subscription (the profile image will be have a yellow plus sign).

2. On the main system menu, press up or the directional pad or left analog stick. This will give you access to the options on the upper tab. From there, press right on the D-pad or left analog stick until you get to “Settings” (which has a gear symbol). Press the X button with “Settings” highlighted to bring up the “Settings” menu.

3. In “Settings,” scroll select “Users and Accounts.”

4. In “Users and Accounts,” press right on the D-Pad and left analog stick and then select “Payment and Subscriptions.”

5. In “Payment and Subscriptions,” scroll down and select “Subscriptions.”

6. In “Subscriptions,” select “PlayStation Plus.”

7. In the PlayStation Plus menu, you get to see the current membership status, including the start date, next charge date and next renewal date. In the same menu, you also have two options: “Extend” and either “Turn-Off Auto-Renew” or “Turn-On Auto-Renew.”

8. If you see “Turn-On Auto-Renew,” then you don’t have to do anything as your PlayStation Plus subscription is already set to disable automatic renewal.

9. If you see “Turn-Off Auto-Renew,” then you should select that option. You will then be prompted to confirm your action, which you can do by selecting “Yes.”

10. Afterwards, you will see a feedback page where you can give a reason as to why you want to disable automatic renewal. You can choose a reason or simply skip it. Either way, you need to select “OK” for the final confirmation.

11. If done correctly, you will be right back at the PlayStation Plus menu and you will see “Turn-On Auto-Renew” as an option.

12. If you want to turn automatic renewal back on, you simply select the “Turn-On Auto-Renew” option from the PlayStation Plus menu.