Can you set notifications for certain apps Android?
Notifications are an essential part of the Android user experience, allowing users to receive timely updates and alerts from apps without having them open. Notifications appear in the status bar, notification shade, and lock screen, informing users about new messages, app events, system activities, and more.
The main purposes of notifications are:
- Keeping users up-to-date with realtime information from apps.
- Alerting users about important events or activities that require their attention.
- Providing glanceable, actionable updates for users to interact with.
Without notifications, users would have to manually open every app repeatedly to check for new information. Notifications make it easy to stay on top of updates from email, social media, news, and other apps without disrupting what the user is currently doing on their device. Android provides a robust notification system for apps to conveniently send alerts and updates to users.
Viewing Notifications
One of the core ways to interact with notifications on Android is via the notification panel. To view your current notifications, simply swipe down from the top of the screen. This will reveal the notification shade where all your recent alerts are displayed in a list. Each notification will show the app icon, title, description, and timestamp.
To get a quick glance at your notifications without opening the full panel, you can swipe down slightly to make the notifications peek onto the screen. From here you can see basic info and can quickly open or dismiss specific alerts.
The notification panel provides options to clear individual notifications or clear all at once. You can also long press on a notification to customize settings just for that app – including changing notification sound, enabling/disabling vibrations, importance level, and more. Icons displayed next to each notification indicate level of importance and whether vibration is enabled.
In addition to the panel, notification icons will display on the status bar at the very top of the screen to indicate you have unread alerts. Tapping on these status bar icons will also open the notification shade.
Notification Settings
Android allows you to control notifications at both a system and per-app level. To access the global notification settings, open the Settings app and go to Apps & Notifications > Notifications (https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en).
Here you can toggle notifications on or off for the entire system. You can also set the importance level for notifications, choosing between Urgent, High, Medium, and Low. Urgent notifications will pop up on your screen no matter what, while Low notifications won’t make a sound or pop up.
To manage notifications for specific apps, tap Apps & Notifications > Notifications > Recently Sent. This will show your most recent notifications. Tap on any app name to adjust its notifications.
Options for individual apps include blocking all notifications, overriding Do Not Disturb, setting a custom sound, allowing peeking, and more. You can tailor each app’s notifications to your preferences (https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/androidbasics/managing-notifications-on-android/1/).
Per-App Notification Settings
You can customize notification settings for individual apps on your Android device. Here’s how:
Open the Settings app and go to Apps & notifications > Notifications. Here you will see a list of apps that have recently sent notifications.
Tap on an individual app to open its notification settings. From here, you can toggle notifications on or off for that app. You can also change the notification sound, vibration pattern, importance level, and more.
For example, you could set Facebook to make a custom notification sound, while your text messaging app uses the default sound. This lets you easily identify notifications just by the sound.
Each app may also have additional notification channels that you can disable. For instance, you could turn off promotional emails from Amazon but keep order notifications on.
Customizing notifications for each app allows you to tune your notification experience. Disable distracting apps, highlight important ones, and make notifications work better for you.
Notification Channels
Notification channels were introduced in Android 8.0 Oreo to provide more granular control over notifications. Apps can now categorize notifications into channels with specific settings and behavior.
When an app targets Android 8.0+, it must assign notifications to a channel. The channel has settings like importance, vibration, LED light, and sound which apply to all notifications in that channel. Apps can create multiple channels for different types of notifications.
By default, each app has a “Miscellaneous” channel for notifications that aren’t assigned to another channel. Users can change the default channel settings or create new customized channels. This gives users more control to tune notifications to their preferences.
For example, a messaging app could have separate channels for received messages, missed calls, and promotional offers. Users could configure each channel’s light, sound, and vibration settings individually. Channels bring organization and flexibility to notification management.
Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb is an Android feature that allows you to block notifications, alerts, and calls during certain times or events. When enabled, Do Not Disturb will silence your phone so you won’t be disturbed by ringtones, vibrations, or visual notifications.
To enable Do Not Disturb on Android, open the Settings app and go to Sound & vibration > Do Not Disturb. Here you can toggle it on or off, and customize options like allowing exceptions, setting a schedule, and more.
By default, Do Not Disturb will block all notifications, alerts, and calls. However, you can allow exceptions for certain apps or contacts by going into Settings > Sound & vibration > Do Not Disturb > Exceptions. This allows calls or messages from certain people or apps to still come through.
Another useful option is the ability to set a schedule for Do Not Disturb so that it automatically turns on and off at certain times. Go to Settings > Sound & vibration > Do Not Disturb > Schedule, and you can set up recurring downtime like during bedtime hours. This is useful to ensure you aren’t woken up by notifications at night.
Do Not Disturb gives you granular control over which notifications can disturb you and when. Using the customization options, you can fine-tune it to fit your needs and prevent unnecessary disruptions at key times.[1]
Advanced Notification Options
Android includes several advanced notification features to provide users more control and customization over their notifications.
Notification Dots
Notification dots [1] are small dots that appear on app icons to indicate the app has a notification. Users can enable or disable notification dots in the Settings app under “Apps & notifications.” Notification dots allow users to see they have a notification without pulling down the notification shade.
Notification History
The notification history [2] keeps a log of recent notifications, even if a notification has been dismissed. Users can view notification history by pulling down the notification shade and scrolling to the bottom. This allows users to go back and view notifications they may have accidentally dismissed.
Bundled Notifications
Bundled notifications [1] combine multiple notifications from the same app into a single grouped notification. This keeps the notification shade clean when an app sends multiple notifications. Users can expand bundled notifications to view individual notifications.
Managing Notifications
You can manage notifications on your Android device in several ways to customize how and when you receive them.
To quickly clear all pending notifications, open the notification shade and tap the ‘Clear all’ button at the bottom of the list (Google Support, 2022). This will immediately dismiss all notifications.
You can also turn off notification sounds and vibrations temporarily using Do Not Disturb mode. Enable Do Not Disturb by swiping down twice from the top of the screen and tapping the Do Not Disturb icon. This will silence sounds and vibrations until you manually disable it (Android Police, 2023).
For more granular control, open the Settings app and go to Apps & Notifications > Notifications. Here you can toggle notification sounds and vibrations for each individual app. Tap an app and switch the ‘Sound’ and ‘Vibrate’ options off. This will mute that app’s notifications while keeping alerts from other apps audible (GCFLearnFree, n.d.).
Overall, Android provides flexible options to take charge of notifications and customize them to your needs or preferences.
Troubleshooting Issues
If you find your Android device is not displaying notifications properly, there are some troubleshooting steps you can take to resolve the problem. Here are some tips for fixing missing notifications and debugging notification issues on Android:
Check your Do Not Disturb settings. Open Settings and go to Sound & vibration > Do Not Disturb to ensure this mode is turned off. Do Not Disturb will block notifications so turn it off if enabled.
Verify app notification settings. Open Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications and select the misbehaving app. Make sure Show notifications is enabled and the Importance is not set to Min.
Check notification channels for the app. Tap the app in app info, choose Notifications and configure the notification channels. Make sure the channel causing issues has Importance set to at least Default.
Try resetting app preferences. Go to Settings > Apps & notifications > App info > Reset app preferences. This resets all preferences for apps including notifications.
Check if notifications are blocked. In Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications, look for alerts that read “Notifications from this app are blocked”. Toggle off this setting.
Restart your Android device. A simple restart can often resolve temporary glitches causing notification issues.
Update the problematic app. Go to Play Store, find the app and install any available updates. Updates sometimes address notification bugs.
As a last resort, uninstall and reinstall the app. This erases all existing settings and starts fresh which may fix stubborn notification problems.
Conclusion
In summary, Android allows users to customize notifications on a per-app basis. The key options covered in this article include:
- Viewing current notifications in the notification shade.
- Adjusting notification settings for each app in Settings.
- Configuring notification channels for more granular control.
- Using Do Not Disturb to mute notifications as needed.
- Advanced adjustments like notification importance and overrides.
The main benefits of customizing notifications on Android include reducing distractions, focusing on relevant alerts, and personalizing your experience. Users can tailor notifications to match their preferences and usage habits.
With the ability to control notification content, timing, sounds and more, Android provides powerful tools to manage alerts. Taking the time to configure notifications for each app allows you to optimize your device to show the information you want when you want it.