Q:

How do I temporarily disable or mute Messages (iMessage) on OS X?

I use Apple's iMessage across several devices, including my (OS X Lion) Mac, using the recent Messages beta.
However, the application has some undesired behaviour.
When I quit Messages, it will relaunch itself when I receive new messages. This is incredibly distracting.
Is there a way to temporarily disable or mute iMessage (including the badge on the Dock) from just my Mac? I'd still like to receive messages on my other iOS devices.

A:

An update for Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks). You can turn on Do Not Disturb in Notification Centre to mute notifications:

You can show Notification Centre by clicking on the three-horizontal-lines icon on the far-right of the menubar, or perhaps by doing a two-finger swipe from the right edge of your trackpad (if this gesture is enabled in System Preferences -> Trackpad -> More Gestures). Then swipe up to reveal the 'Do Not Disturb' toggle (which is hidden at the top of the notification centre panel).
Update: I've also just discovered that you can option-click on the Notification centre menubar icon to toggle Do Not Disturb mode on and off.

A:

Click your apple symbol in the computer -> System preferences -> notifications ->  messages -> none 

A:

On the Messages menubar, go to Messages-> Accounts and uncheck iMessages.

