6 Android settings for smart notifications

Ah, notice. Have any other technical wonders managed to be so incredibly helpful and impossibly annoying at the same time?

Notification is really one of the biggest strengths of our smartphones – And One of their most annoying annoyances. They keep us connected to important information and yet keep us connected to our digital lives at the most unnecessary time.

Here in the land of Android, notifications are actually designed in an intelligent way that makes them reasonably easy to manage and customize. (The same cannot be said, ahem, sure Others Smartphone platform.)

But it takes a little bit of hard work to take full advantage of Android’s notification intelligence. Some of the most helpful and advanced notification options are buried in the software and require a virtual treasure map (and / or a squash of gentle coxing).

Don’t worry though: I’ve got your treasure map here. And once you’ve set things up with these things, your Android notifications will be in tip-top format – no running effort required.

Ready to teach your phone to work for you?

Android Notification Setting No. 1: Controls individual channels

Not only does Android treat notifications from different apps, but it also allows for complex control over how they differ. Type Notification In Apps work from the Android 8.0 release of 2017.

So as long as your phone is running Android 8.0 or higher (and if it isn’t – well, buddy, we have a bigger problem), it’s worth taking a few minutes to think about how aggressively you want to differentiate. Android notifications to alert you.

The quickest way to do this is to press and hold your finger on any individual notifications you receive, and then tap the gear-shaped settings icon or the word “settings” in the panel that appears. This will take you to an overview of the different types of notifications that the respective app is able to send you – and from there, a few more taps to properly customize how all of these specific categories behave.

If you tap on the toggle next to the app of any category, such notification will be turned on or off completely. But the real power comes from tapping Words Next to the toggle.

This will allow you to be super-concise and decide whether a particular type of notification should be a word or should be muted, what specific word it should be, whether it should vibrate, if and how it should be displayed on your lock screen and if it is an Android duo. Knot overrides disturb mode and demands your attention even when your phone is in silent mode.

This is a great way to make your most important notifications as prominent as possible and to set alerts that are less stressful – say, notices about newly published memories from Google Photos or notes about your boss’s “very important meeting” – so that they keep you quiet. No and only then available You Actively search for them.

This is a smart way to stop unnecessary constant notifications that do little more than create chaos. So go ahead – get those things out of your hair already!

Android Notification Setting No. 2: Priority Conversation Options

If you use Google’s Android messaging app, you have a great and often overlooked option that can make managing your most important conversations about 2.7 million times easier.

Nominate the thread with any of your specific contacts as “Priority” and any message from that person will then (a) appear at the top of your notification panel, above all other pending warnings – and (b) the person’s usage Face (Your contacts are set in the app) as their icons so you can easily identify them at a glance in your status bar.

Android Notification: Priority Conversation

Nifty, no?

This requires Android 11 or higher version of 2020. As long as your phone is running, just:

Press and hold your finger on any message-sent notification from the person and / or the questionable porpoise.
In the pop-up panel, tap “Priority”
To save your selection, tap the word “Done” in the same panel

Then go to the Google Contacts app (and if you’re still using the Subpar Contact app, the maker of your non-Pixel phone paid you for Goog, switch over already) and make sure you have a happy person / body in the profile picture – ’cause You will see a horrible lot of it from here.

Android Notification Setting No. 3: Silent Notification Switch

On the flip side of that last notification setting, this next hidden option is one that will mute any notifications you set – using the method we used in the first tip of this collection – and make it so that you don’t even See Icon of those notifications in your phone’s status bar.

That way, if some low priority is enough that you set it to be silent, it won’t Apparently Claim your attention, and you’ll only see it when you fully expand your phone’s notification panel.

All you have to do is flip a quick universal switch:

Open the notification section of your phone’s settings.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and find the line labeled “Hide silent notifications in status bar”.
Flip the toggle next to it.

And here it is: any notifications you set to silent will virtually disappear and avoid clutter in your status bar and your brain.

(Note that Samsung has removed this option from the operating system for some reason from its heavily modified Android presentation – however, as an alternative, you can open anyone Type Notifications, using the same process we went to our second suggestion in this collection, and look for the option to “shorten notifications” as well as mute them to make the same thing happen on a case-by-case basis.)

Android Notification Setting No. 4: Snooze Button

One of my favorite Android notification options is the ability to snooze a notification and it comes back later, when you’re ready to deal with it. But for some reason, notification snoozing is often off by default.

Let’s fix that, shall we?

Go back to the Notifications section of your system settings.
If you use a Samsung phone, gently blow your nose and then tap “Advanced Settings”.
Scroll down until you see the line labeled “Allow snooze notification” (or “Show snooze button” with Samsung).
Make sure the toggle next to it is on.

Then, whenever you receive a notification, look for an icon that looks like either an alarm clock or a clock. On Samsung devices, you may need to extend the notification from its broken form before you can see it. And in older Android versions, you need to slide the notification A little Left or right to reveal the icon.

However you find it, tap that bad guy and your notification will be snoozed – usually for one hour by default, though you can tap to change the confirmation to 15 minutes, 30 minutes or two hours.

Android Notification Setting No. 5: Time Machine

I don’t know about you, but I often accidentally swipe a notification myself and then feel the hint of that terrible regret. Once a notification is gone, it is gone – or so it seems.

Well, surprise, surprise: Android has actually been a native notification history feature since the Android 11 update of 2020. But, like notification snoozing, it often happens You To find and activate it.

Fortunately, the process may not be so easy with:

Slide back to the Notifications section of your system settings.
If you use a Samsung phone, pop yourself up on your Nagin and then tap on “Advanced Settings”.
Tap the line labeled “Notification History”.
Make sure the toggle next to “Use notification history” (or “On” with Samsung) is on the next screen.

Then, anytime you want to revisit the notifications you’ve canceled, either go back to the same area of your settings to find them – or look for the “History” option at the bottom of your notification panel for a shortcut. There

(This option, rather annoyingly, is not always present. It usually appears when you have at least one notification pending. However, you can always get the complete history manually through your system settings.)

Android Notification Setting No. 6: Bubble Machine

Last but not least in our collection of Android notification settings is one of Google’s most divisive features – a fancy little thing called a bubble.

The bubble came in the Android 11 release of 2020, after having existed unofficially in a handful of separate apps for several years before that. This gives you a way to place specific messaging conversations in a permanently accessible place, as a small circular icon on your screen, and then expand or contract those conversations to interact with what you’re doing.

In fact, most people (including themselves) find it more annoying than convenient. And it’s a shame, ’because there were bubbles Basically It means more than just putting specific messages in front and center throughout your day.

But whether you love them or hate them, you can actively decide for yourself how bubbles will play in your Android experience.

Here’s how to control this setting:

Finally go back to the notification section of your system settings.
If you use a Samsung phone, shake your chin with a moderate force and then tap on “Advanced Settings”.
Tap the line labeled “Bubbles” or “Floating Notifications” with Samsung.
Optional but recommended: Create a “glog, glog, glog” sound effect as you perform the previous step.
Flip the toggle on or off (or select “off” or “bubble” with Samsung), depending on whether you like or dislike those tiny circles.

If you turn on the bubble, any conversations from a supported app that you have selected as “Priority” – using the second tip of this collection – will then appear as a floating, floating bubble. If you turn it off, those bursting bubble bugs will happily be banished.

Either way, you’ll be in control of your own notification destiny – and dear, an exceptional mobile experience in the end.

Get three new things to try every Friday My Android Intelligence Newsletter – And get three bonus tips on your favorite topic in seconds!