You should know these 3 notification tricks on Android

Notifications are the bane of my existence on any phone, tablet, computer or screen I use. I rely on them every day to talk to my family, manage my work inbox and tasks, get alerts if anything goes wrong at home, keep an eye on my deliveries, and more. I can’t live without them, but I can’t live with them either all in. That’s why I designed some systems to save me from the constant onslaught of notifications, especially on my Android phonethese systems rely on three little-known tricks: hibernation, history, and channels. Let’s dig a little deeper.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who sometimes gets excited enough to delete notifications before fully reading them. I could feel the biggest “Ouch!” building in my head as it quickly moved to the side and disappeared into the ether. I really need to read it!

Android has a way to restore these notifications, but to my dismay, it’s turned off by default. So, every time I set up a new Android phone or android tabletI have to remember to go into and turn on notification history so that my phone keeps a log of the latest alerts it’s received.

To do this, go to Settings > Notifications > Notification History and open Use notification history. That’s it. Now all you have to do is click history button in the lower left corner of Notifications, or if you don’t currently have notifications, you can click No notification text, This is an invisible shortcut.

These will take you directly to the Notification History menu in Settings, where you can scroll through 24 hours of notifications, fully expanded and clickable. There are no quick actions (delete, reply, mark as read, etc.), but you can still click to go where the notification is supposed to take you. I don’t use notification history very often, but when I do need it, I’m forever grateful that it exists.

Anyone who knows what I do assumes that I am connected to my phone 24 hours a day. But the reality is far from that. Most of the time, especially when I’m at home, with my phone on the table while I’m working, cooking, or relaxing, I just get the most important notifications on my Pixel Watch 3. mute (save call charges) and I have a no vibration rule.

Then what happens is, a few hours later I pick up my phone and randomly find over 20 new notifications from apps and services. Checking all of these issues and taking action can feel overwhelming, and most of the time, some things are better dealt with later. Maybe I’m looking up some lunch ideas while I’m cooking and then I notice five new emails, or maybe I’m testing a new feature for work and I see a WhatsApp message from my aunt; whatever the case, these are my Want to take action on notifications, just not now.

To clear away clutter and keep important notifications current, I use the snooze feature. Again, this feature doesn’t appear to be enabled by default on most phones I’ve tested. you must go Settings > Notifications > Allow notification snooze and turn it on.

It offers a new alarm clock snooze-like icon in the lower right corner of each notification, letting you quickly snooze it for an hour (or you can tap to change it to 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or two hours). Snoozed notifications disappear completely from the drop-down list and reappear after a time delay. This is perfect if you’re like me and want a cleaner notification tray without forgetting certain pending tasks or messages.

Many months ago, Google had the bright idea to add a new feature to notifications: Channels. Basically, app notifications are not created equally, so they should not be treated equally. The delivery progress of my Uber Eats order is not as important as the new 2 for 1 burger promotion. A Google Maps navigation update is more important than reminding me of the post office rating I visited yesterday. A new Google Meet call is a million times more important than the response to a message I send in the app. etc.

Most app developers on Android have adopted these pipelines and grouped their notifications into different categories, if you will. Therefore, it is relatively easy for us to control different types of notifications. (If you are using Samsung OneUI, you may need First enable notification categories.)

Basically, whenever you get a notification saying you want to see less or more content, or you no longer want to see it, You can click and hold on it to reveal a bunch of options. You can prioritize conversation notifications so they appear at the top, but you can also mute, minimize, and completely deactivate notifications you don’t care about.

Google Weather? This is silencing and minimizing to me. I want to see it, but it shouldn’t take up half my notification tray. So it goes down to the bottom and appears as a row and I can expand it if I want to get more information. I also minimized ad-hoc notifications for uploads or downloads from Chrome, WhatsApp and Drive, as well as notifications running in the background from certain smart home or wearable products. Most of the time, I don’t need these to bother me, but I’d still like to see them if an upload gets stuck or the app stays active in the background for an extended period of time.

Additionally, promotions on apps like Uber, Bolt, Deliveroo, Amazon, etc. have been completely shut down. I don’t want to be bombarded with millions of deals and offers every day. The same goes for Google Maps’ entire recommendations, reviews, media, locations, and profile notifications. I also disabled all Instagram notifications except for direct messages and all Chrome notifications (no exceptions).

That being said, one of my favorite notification features is the ability to Synchronize notification dismissal across multiple phones and tabletsbut the feature still doesn’t work for me. It’s also currently limited to pixels. When it fully rolls out to Android, probably within a year or two, it should be a game-changer for anyone with multiple devices.