Android · Display & Sound
Control Notifications on Android
Notification settings let you decide which apps can alert you, how those alerts look, and where they show up — from the lock screen to the status bar. You can manage this globally or app by app, and choose which notifications are urgent enough to break through Do Not Disturb.
How to open Notifications
- Open Settings → Notifications.
- Tap 'App notifications' to manage a specific app, or adjust lock screen and status bar behavior from the main page.
- Select an app to turn its notifications on/off or fine-tune individual categories.
- Long-press any notification in the shade for a shortcut into that app's notification settings.
What you should know
- Each app's notifications can be turned off entirely or split into categories (like 'promotions' versus 'order updates').
- Notifications can be set to Alerting (makes sound, appears at top) or Silent (no sound, lower in the list).
- Lock screen visibility can be set to show full content, show only that a notification exists, or hide it completely.
- Notification history keeps a temporary log of recent alerts, including ones you've dismissed.
Turning off notifications for an app doesn't uninstall or disable it — the app still runs, it just won't alert you.
Why it matters
Notifications are the single biggest source of daily phone interruptions, and unmanaged, they train you to check your phone far more than you actually need to. Getting per-app control right means the alerts that matter — a message from family, a delivery update — still get through instantly, while marketing pings and app-engagement nudges get silenced. It's also a genuine focus and mental-health lever, not just a convenience setting, since constant low-value interruptions measurably fragment attention over a day.
Best practices
- Turn off promotional or 'engagement' notification categories individually instead of muting a useful app entirely.
- Set less urgent apps to Silent so they don't make sound or appear at the top, but still show up in the shade.
- Hide sensitive notification content on the lock screen, especially for banking, email, and messaging apps.
- Review notification permissions for any newly installed app during its first week of real use.
- Use notification history to check whether you missed something important during a Do Not Disturb window.
Common problems and fixes
- An app's notifications stop arriving even though they're turned on in the app itself.
- Check Settings → Notifications → [app] to confirm Android-level notification permission wasn't separately revoked.
- Too many low-priority notifications make it hard to notice the important ones.
- Set noisy apps to Silent individually rather than turning off notifications altogether, so they still appear without interrupting.
- Sensitive content (like verification codes) shows in full on the lock screen.
- Change lock screen notification visibility to 'Hide sensitive content' or 'Don't show notifications at all' under Settings → Notifications.
- A notification was dismissed by accident before it could be read.
- Open Settings → Notifications → Notification history to recover recently dismissed alerts.
Tips and tricks
- Long-press directly on a notification in the shade to jump straight into that app's notification settings, skipping the full Settings menu.
- Use per-category controls on apps like email or shopping instead of an all-or-nothing mute when only some alert types are annoying.
Frequently asked questions
Can I control specific types of notifications from one app, not just all or nothing?
Yes, many apps break notifications into categories (like order updates versus promotions) that can each be toggled independently.
What's the difference between Alerting and Silent notifications?
Alerting notifications make a sound and appear at the top of the shade; Silent ones make no sound and sit lower in the list without interrupting you.
Can I recover a notification I swiped away by mistake?
Yes, Notification history keeps a temporary record of recent alerts, including ones already dismissed.
Related settings
- Sound & VibrationSound & Vibration settings control independent volume levels for media, ringtones, notifications, and alarms, along with vibration intensity and patterns. You can also assign custom ringtones per contact and configure haptic feedback for touch and typing.
- Do Not Disturb / Focus ModeDo Not Disturb silences calls, texts, and notifications while still letting you choose specific exceptions, like starred contacts or repeat callers. Android's broader Modes system extends this with presets like Bedtime and Driving, plus fully custom modes for work or focus time.
- Privacy DashboardThe Privacy Dashboard gives you a timeline of exactly which apps accessed your camera, microphone, and location, and when — so you can spot anything unexpected at a glance.
More Display & Sound guides for Android
- Display & Dark ThemeDisplay settings control brightness, screen timeout, font size, and Dark theme — a system-wide dark color scheme that's easier on the eyes and can save battery on some screens.
- Game Mode / Game DashboardGame Dashboard is an overlay that appears during gameplay on supported devices, offering an FPS counter, screen recording, screenshot capture, and a one-tap Do Not Disturb toggle without leaving the game. Game Mode, accessed from the same overlay, lets you choose between prioritizing performance or battery life for that specific title.
- Font Size & Display SizeFont Size and Display Size sliders scale text and interface elements system-wide, independently of each other, so text can be enlarged for readability while overall layout density stays the same, or the entire UI can be scaled up including icons and spacing.
- Screen TimeoutScreen Timeout controls how many seconds or minutes of inactivity elapse before the display automatically turns off and locks, balancing convenience against battery use and security.
- Auto-Rotate ScreenAuto-Rotate uses the device's accelerometer to switch the display between portrait and landscape orientation as the device is physically turned, and can be toggled off to lock the screen to a single orientation.
- One-Handed ModeOne-Handed Mode temporarily shrinks and shifts the entire screen content down toward the bottom half of the display, making it possible to reach top corners and status bar elements with one thumb on large-screen phones.