Managing Notifications On Your Android Phone

Notifications are an essential part of Android experience and a helpful one, for that matter. Notifications alert us to all the important happenings and updates on our device and give us quick access to emails, messages and social media updates.

However, you may find that certain apps abuse their notification right, pushing promotional content way too frequently. You may also think some notifications are far less important than others or even not worth receiving at all. In this case, there are several ways to tweak your Android notification system and make sure everything is singing to your own tune.

Prioritize Your Notifications

One of the things you can do to customize you notifications is set different ringtones for the ones that are important and the ones that are not. If this option is allowed within the app’s individual settings, it can help you significantly decrease the related fuss. Simply set the same ringtone for key applications’ notifications and a different one for the rest. With this option in place, you will no longer rush to the phone at every beep, only to find that Candy Crush got a new update.

Get Rid Of The Ones You Don’t Need

A more drastic solution is to turn off the notifications altogether. Luckily, with most Android systems it’s a pretty easy process.

If you are using the latest version of Android (Lollipop 5.0), controlling your notifications has its own little system.

When a notification pops up, you will need to long press it – that will bring up a link that will guide you to the notification settings of that particular app. Here you will be able to decide what to do with the notifications and if you don’t want to see them any longer, simply toggle on the Block option. That’s it – you will no longer be seeing notifications from this app.

Another way to get to that control area is through Settings>Sound and Notifications> App Notifications. There you will find every app and will be able to manage individual notifications settings.

As some users prefer to use a PIN to protect their phone content when they are not using it, they may also prefer for their notifications to not be revealed in full when the screen is locked. For instance, you may not want the content of a text message or email to be displayed line by line at the top of the screen as the notification appears. In this case you can label the notification as Sensitive (in the app’s notification settings). Once that’s done, you will be able to see your notifications, but the content will not show up over locked screen.

If you are using earlier versions of Android (Jelly Bean or Kit Kat), toggling off your notification is not that different. You will still long press on the notification to get access to the app’s settings. From there on you can uncheck the Show Notifications box. However, this will not turn off ALL the notifications from the app and you will still get occasional updates and alerts. If you prefer to turn off all the notifications from the app completely, you will need to check the All tab in the app’s notifications settings.

 Check Your Notifications For Spam

If you seem to be getting clearly promotional and advertorial notifications, asking you to visit websites or sign up for quizzes and you don’t know which application is spamming you, you may want to consider installing an app that will help you track the wrong-doer, like AirPush Detector.

While getting rid of spam is a great step towards higher productivity and better phone performance, you should consider all the pros and cons before disabling all notifications from the apps you are using frequently – as they are a quick source of important alerts and will give you a quick overview of what’s happening on your device.