Notifications are one of the most important aspects of your smartphone, whether or not you realize that. They act as shortcuts to things like your music player, reminders to complete tasks, and buzzers to let you know that someone is reaching out to you. They're seriously handy, and Android's robust notification system is one of its best features.
But they can be annoying, too, especially in an era where we're constantly connected with our phones in our pockets. Notifications can ruin a movie, make it hard to focus, or just distract you when you're trying to turn your brain off for the day. If you're wondering how to turn off some of those notifications and live a slightly quieter smartphone life, we'll help you out.
Check out that screenshot above. See all those notifications? That could be much worse, but it's still incredibly annoying. Let's get it fixed.
Step 1: Swipe down on the notification bar and see what notifications you currently have. For our example, we have quite a few different notifications present, but Twitter is the annoying one that we want to nix.
Swipe that notification to the left. Not all the way, mind you; we just want to swipe it enough to show the notification settings and mute buttons. If you only want to make the app be quiet for a short period of time, you can tap the mute button to get a few minutes of silence, but we're going to make these notifications go away completely.
Step 2: You need to tap that settings icon. That's going to launch us directly into the settings app on your phone, and right into the notification settings for that particular app.
Alternatively, if you're trying to shut off the notifications for an app without doing it through your notification shade, you can still find this in the settings app. This will vary slightly by phone, but generally you'll want to navigate through Settings > Notifications > App Notifications, then select the app that you need to change.
Step 3: Now that we're in the right part of settings, you'll be able to see everything that this app can send you notifications for. Something like Gmail is a little more sparse, only allowing you to toggle notifications for received emails. It's not like Gmail does much else!
But if you're looking at something like Twitter, you can actually toggle certain things off. If you don't want notifications for DMs, for example, you can turn that off while leaving everything else on. But if you do want to turn the app's notifications off completely, just toggle that top option.
Step 4: And that's most of the hard work! You'll notice that every notification toggle for Twitter has been hidden; it won't bother you anymore, no matter how many messages and alerts you get. You'll still get those sent to your account, obviously, but your phone won't bother you about it at 3AM.
If you want to turn it off for a bit, like when you're on vacation, you can turn it back on later by repeating these steps, then tapping that top option again. Things will go back to just how you set them before you turned everything off.
It's not a bad to periodically go through your app notifications and turn things off for games that you don't play as often anymore, apps that bug you about current in-app promotions, and anything else that's distracting the rest of your life. Stay on top of your digital wellbeing and you'll be way less stressed every day, trust me.
GOD BLESS YOU. These annoying POS notifications just NEVER STOP, even after going into APPS and disabling them. Makes me want to leave my carrier and go to another…and see how annoying THEY are.
I don’t know if you get on Apple less spam, I doubt…but probably the only thing that really helps is using some older phone…which has no andorid and all trillions of things and applications..that you never need and have never asked for…those smartphones with android seems to be whole new dimension of spam…incredible intrusive
my galaxy s5 started giving me these good morning good night etc screens that I have to swipe away whenever they appear. How do you get rid of those?
Try disabling Peel notifications.
Android is trash.
Source: My Android
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86f9869b299f9aebbe22f7d29b6973ca8bb46b49db191026cb4e2cf4996ea751.png If you don’t know where does it come from , how will u identify it?
It directly takes me to Play Store.
The only way to escape is to cancel it.
Fed up with this.
This one is a lifesaver! Thank you!
Why is my phone LG Optimus without the button ‘Show Notifications’?
yea now repeat for the next 200 apps. fucking cunts at android, stupid fucking cunts.
Wrong answer.
No good when you reboot your device that box it rechecked again. How can you prevent that for happening?
I have this same problem with some apps re-enabling notifications without the phone being restarted. I manually unchecked the Allow Notifications box and can even check back later to confirm the unchecked box, but at some point the notifications resume again. I really need a solution because it’s terribly invasive for games or infrequently used apps to notify me at inconvenient times. Any guidance is appreciated.
– Droid Bagel
Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Apparently, Android apps are allowed to change your personal settings and allow notifications even when you turn them off. And there’s nothing you can do about it other than uninstall the app or upgrade to Windows Phone.
When has windows ever been an “upgrade”?
Dead right, poke my eye out before putting up with another Windows POS phone!
Just read Gates doesn’t even use Windows phone.
Just read Gates doesn’t even use Windows phone.
My friend has a new Straight Talk LG22C (Android) phone. He is having every text message & phone call voice announce receiving of those. He wants to disable this permanently from happening. He referred to pg 62 of the Users Guide to turn off the toggle for Message/Voice Notifications; however, it does not keep the text/voice notifications from being heard.
Any way to disable especially the message notifications?
How can I stop the android system app that saying your storage is low I want to stop that notification
Yes me too however Android System doesn’t allow you to turn off notifications and that low storage warning annoys me. I was hoping to find out why that notification can’t be disabled in this article.
I keep getting several notifications that appear overnight, reminding me to install Google Keep, along with a reminder that I did use at one point with the app. I’ve uninstalled Keep. I shouldn’t be getting these notifications, and I can’t find where to get rid of them.
Bless your wonderful heart! I have been trying for ages to stop the annoying email notifications on my android phone but none of the sound options worked. You absolute star!!
The notification gets re-enabled if he battery dies, or you reboot for whatever reason. Bloody annoying to have to disable it EVERY time that happens, or when the app updates. Any workaround for that?
Wonder if there’s an app for that…
your directions works for like a couple of weeks but the app turns the notifications back on by themselves and I have to redo it. any problem solving for that?
My wi fi keeps turning on and I turned of all wi fi looking devices
Not sure what good this article does. I suppose, for some, it may be of use. For me, out of 7 different phones, & numerous versions of android, basically the only notifications I’ve had pop up are the most annoying,, useless, notification of battery low, that constantly pops up because the cheap micro-usb pin/port last no time & the charge won’t stay connected, and fairly regular pio
Low battery is far better than an iOS device. I got a touch, and the damn thing keeps telling me at 20% THEN jumps up to above that… I swear I am not done attempting to jailbreak the bastard… (Android only does it at 14% or so.)
I would like to know the names of the “product engineers” over at Google who thinks that the typical human being is an attention-starved 13-year-old on Ritalin who needs 45 worthless and stupid apps beeping at them 45 times a day.
Amen!! If only…I’m certain that they would not be looking for attention for some time into the next century! They’re stupid for constantly doing it. The only prob is, we’re stupider for continuing to support the yahoos!
Funny as he’ll
When a company’s interview for qualifications don’t include design …
this works if you don’t plan to restart your phone. once you restart your phone the notifications will reappear and for someone who has a lot of apps its very annoying as I have to individually uncheck each one. worse of all is when you uncheck the app it takes you right back to the top of the apps and thenni have to scroll down to my last app. it took me 1 hour and a half to uncheck all the apps as I have to scroll down every single time. when I had jellybean I could uncheck the app and it will let me go to the next app in line to be checked off.now that I have kitkat my ram runs very high when I try to clear ram it clears only 2 appplications meanwhile I had 12 mb ram left which is very low.restarting the Samsung galaxy s3 will bring the ram back to a low butit doesn’t take long for the ram to go sky rocket high even when you dotn use the apps
I suppose the fact that I have the pretty outdated Android v. 2.3.6 means that I cannot turn off notifications
My phone doesn’t have the disable notifications thing for me to check. X.x so how do I disable them then? Other then that great advice. :)
I just love you. Thank you for this article!!! I just got my first android phone and if FB beeps me ONE MORE TIME…
I do all the above but for some reason the app redoes it itself and I still get the notifications and I got to go do it all over again
How do you fix a android galaxy player that dies without a reason?
Its the same sound I get when my charger is plugged in or unplugged…
I keep getting a notification prompt and I cant find where it is coming from. Anybody know where To go from here?
Thank for this post. It works for me.
Under Settings -> My Device -> Blocking Mode set Turn Off Notifications only then under the Set Time section unset Always and then set the time period when you do not want to receive notifications. This will at least help you sleep better.
I want the notifications but I don’t want them popping up with the details with this new OS update. How can we just get them to show in the notification center but not pop up with details?
I dont get the show notifications box underneath the force stop button what can I do?
Yeah, same here. All the sites point to this spot, but that spot is empty in my version of android. No notification option at all.
If you want all notifications turned off (including messaging notifications) you can use Settings -> My Device -> Blocking Mode set Turn Off Notifications. But make sure “Block Incoming Calls” is not checked. You can also set a time period when the notifications are disabled.
How do I turn off all notifications except texts?
Doesnt work really. Most apps, especially games, keep updating. When they update they turn the notifications on again. Theres nothing you can do.
What if you don’t know what’s notifying you then what. I get the annoying “whistle” notification and for the life of me I don’t know what app it is. Someone please help!
Just tried this on my aps management ap. Seems to have worked but what side effects Ill get is up for grabs. Im just tired of getn update notifications over and over on stuff I dont even use. Too much crap on these phones that you cant totally eliminate. Now…can somebody tell me how to put a gun to the heads of my service and force them to give me what they advertised as “unlimited internet”? This data limitations at 4g is BS! On 3g I get ZERO internet.
hi, is there a way of disabling all the notifications all at once? its a pain having to go to every application and doing it again and again for each app.
thanx.
I’m trying this now so I won’t be reminded of any messages I’m receiving from my whatsapp… hope it works! thanks!
Face book
How to delete all inbox notifications
I do this but then the next day is has turned itself back on again??
Same for me any solution to that?
That’s my problem! I uncheck the box and the next day I’m getting notifications for the same app I just shut off! I’ve been looking for a way to fix this but can’t find anything online. Pretty frustrating!
Is there any way to do this for only the follow up notification? Like when you don’t read a notification (message) and it makes the noise again. How do I make THAT stop while keeping notifications?
thanks!!!!! My notification bar was overflowing. Why on earth would an equalizer app have a notification?!!?
Is there any way to disable the notification bar altogether? It always pops up when I’m talking on the phone and prevents the use of my keypad
I hate this fucking thing I hate android for this reason every 10 min this fucking thing appears on screen
The one for Email is not letting me Uncheck. I dont want these notifications.
There are tons of apps that will still pop up sound and notifications despite having the specific app’s “Show Notification” unchecked.
Thank you.
Using the LG G2 and unchecked the “show notification” on an app for Megapolis and it still makes the notification sound, but nothing on the notification bar. How can I get the sound to stop? I have turned off all the notifications in the settings on the app itself also.
thank you
Thanks!
Unfortunately neither method seems to work on my HTC One V. I see no way to turn off Twitter notifications at all.
Thank you so much for those simple instructions, you are awesome. Got woken up so many times with Twitter notifications.
Thanks mate.
Gosh, thank you.
All I want to do is stop the notifications when I am on a phone call. Any ideas?
S3 – 4.1.2
All the annoying sounds coming out of my Android devices are really starting to annoy me. Whos brilliant idea was it to attach sounds to every dang update? Then when you have several android devices it multiplies the problem.
Gmail doesn’t have this checkbox. :/ What the heck!
Thanks!
Thanks bro.
THANK YOU! I went into the T-Mobile app and unchecked the notifications boxes but I was still getting notifications about my account. This did the trick!
I have a battery saver that came with z Android. It is constantly notifying me that it start when the battery gets low
Yay. Thankyou. This was driving me crazy.
I get notifications from Avaast which I uninstalled and confirmed as not running on the phone. Is there any way I can block it. Using a rooted Nexus 4.
Thank you! There are a lot of apps I like, but when they aren’t active, they had better just keep quiet. I absolutely hate it when I think I’m getting a text, and it turns out to be some game reminding me I haven’t played in a while.
Are there no risks with this? Can you miss important things? Or is everything working just like berörd but isn’t visible?
You can miss stuff. The device doesn’t know if the notification is important or just advertising. If there are any notifications from that app that you really do want to get, it’s better to just leave all notifications on.
Thank you!
Even if you do this and uncheck show notification the notification appears from some application’s what can you do regarding the same! I am using Google nexus 4 with android 4.3
Same thing is happening to me! Are you rooted by the way?
Thank you! An app I have been using mysteriously started posting ads in my notifications bar and I couldn’t figure out which app was doing it. Like the app, hate the ads.
Thanks
Thanks, you have saved me hours of searching. Roger
What about annoying system notifications that can’t even be dismissed. Android sucks! I want my iPhone back!
I tried this with Google Play because they send me notification ads for games every 10 min but there is no option to disable notifications. What a load of crap!
Open google play app and go to settings then uncheck the notifications bar …
you can go to the settings by taping the right touchscreen key in your mobile …
Better, go to Google play, give it a one-star review, then uninstall.
then, it’ll be just an ordinary phone… :/
Good tip, also you can go to the settings menu–>Apps, search the app and disable the notifications
Great tip. Thx for this.