No notifications on your Android? 13 ways to fix that

Sometimes your colleague talks to you on Google Meet and you don’t get a notification. ‘Hello are you there?’ follow it through whatsapp. Completely missed. And with a bit of bad luck you will also miss WhatsApp. Not every phone shows all notifications smoothly, but luckily there are ways to solve problems with notifications. We name 13.

1. Check whether the app is allowed to send notifications

Do you wonder why you get notifications from one app and not from another? Check with the app what the notification settings are. Maybe you never allowed it and the app keeps to that agreement. This is how you check it:

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Go to notifications -> App settings
3. Select the app you want to check
4. Switch at the Standard settings in which messages the app should notify you

2. Turn off Do Not Disturb

Sometimes you don’t realize it, but Do Not Disturb mode is on. It is therefore logical that you do not receive any notifications: after all, this mode is made to ensure that you are not always disturbed by those notifications. Sometimes you turn it on before you go to sleep or before that important job interview, but then forget to turn it off. If you want notifications from certain apps, but otherwise remain in Do Not Disturb, you can do that too.

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Select notifications
3. Go to Do not disturb and select Applications
4. Choose the apps that are allowed to interrupt you
5. Select per app whether you allow all notifications, or only specific notifications (this differs per app)

3. See what apps are allowed to exchange in the background

If you do not allow apps to exchange data in the background, you will not receive any notifications.

1. Go to the app in your app drawer
2. Long tap on the app and choose the ‘i’ at the top right
3. Select Mobile data and Wi-Fi
4. Add the slider Background data to

4. Allow apps in focus mode

Focus mode is pretty much the same as Do Not Disturb mode, but with a slightly different twist. However, notifications can also be disabled here, so that you no longer see them. Here’s how to turn them back on:

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Choose Digital wellbeing and parental controls
3. Choose Focus mode
   
4. Make sure that the apps you do want to receive notifications from do not have a check mark in the square by tapping them

5. Turn for Sst

A mode that is not very well known is ‘Turn for Sst’. This one causes you to sometimes accidentally turn on a do not disturb mode when you put your phone face down and you don’t want that. So make sure you turn it off. This mode only works for Pixel phones, but you can also use it on other phones through this app.

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Choose Digital wellbeing and parental controls
3. Choose Turn around for Sst
4. Tap on it and toggle the slider

6. Check the channels where a notification is posted

If you disable the notification channels for an installed app, you will not see anything if there is activity in the app. You check this by looking up the app in the app drawer and then long pressing it. Tap on the ‘i’ of info, go to notifications and you can also check here which notifications the app is allowed to send you. For example, very useful with an app like Slack, where you can specifically select per channel who is allowed to send notifications.

7. Check the app settings from within the app

If you miss notifications from WhatsApp, you may have muted a certain group. You will only receive notifications again when you remove the calls from mute. You do this as follows:

1. Open WhatsApp
2. Open the conversation where you notice you’re not receiving notifications
3. Tap the three dots at the top right
4. Tap on Unmute notifications
5. Now you will receive notifications from that person or group as usual

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8. What about notifications on your lock screen?

If you’d like notifications on your Android phone’s lock screen but can’t seem to get them, you can easily fix that:

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Choose notifications -> Lock screen notifications
3. Then choose Show conversations

9. Turn off battery saver mode

Showing notifications takes effort and energy from your phone, so your battery life doesn’t improve when all those notifications are turned on. So if you turn on the battery saving mode, you don’t have to count on notifications. The solution is to either charge your phone or turn off battery saver mode.

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Go to Battery
3. Choose Battery Saver
   
4. Flip the slider Use battery saver
   

10. Disable custom battery usage

There’s another way your battery behavior can cause problems with notifications. So turn it off.

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Go to Battery
3. Choose Custom Preferences
4. Add the slider Amended battery usage out

11. Disable Pause app activity

The function ‘pause app activity if not used’ ensures that notifications are temporarily stopped when the app is not used for a long time. If this is on, permissions and temporary files will also be removed. You can turn this feature off.

1. Go to the app in your app drawer
2. Long tap on the app and choose the i in the top right corner
3. Tap below Unused app settings on Pause app activity when not in use to turn it off

12. Pin apps to the background

Some brands allow inactive apps to run in the background to ensure that the battery life does not have to suffer. However, if you want certain apps to continue to run in the background (and you therefore also receive notifications), you can arrange that

1. Swipe up to open the recent apps menu
2. Go to the app you want to pin
3. Press and hold its logo for a while
4. With some phones and apps you can then choose ‘pin app’choose this option

13. Turn off Do Not Disturb for bedtime mode

If you have Do not disturb in bedtime mode on, you don’t have to count on notifications when your phone is in sleep mode. However, if you want to receive all kinds of notifications while you turn around again, you can turn that off.

1. Open the Institutions on your phone
2. Choose Digital wellbeing and parental controls -> Bedtime mode
3. Add the slider ‘Do not disturb’ off for bedtime mode

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Hopefully, the issues you ran into regarding notifications are now resolved. If you have any good lifehacks of your own, share them in the comments.