How do I manage notifications on my device?

It's important to stay connected and notifications keep you in the loop by letting you know that something new has happened in one of your apps. While this can be great for keeping on top of your important emails and messages it can become annoying when you get reminded to open a game that you barely play.

Samsung gives you complete control over your notifications, letting you customise and block notifications from your apps, making sure that you are only alerted to the things that matter.

Samsung Galaxy | How to set up app notifications on your phone Samsung Galaxy | How to set up app notifications on your phone

Don't want to be disturbed? It's possible to quickly turn notifications off for all of the apps on your device. Being bugged by a particularly annoying app? You can change the notification settings for individual apps to prevent it from sending you notifications.
 

Turn off notifications for all your apps

1 Swipe up from the home screen, to access your apps
Swipe up to access your apps
2 Tap Settings
Tap Settings
3 Tap Notifications
Tap notifications
4 Tap Do not disturb
Tap Do not disturb
5 Tap Hide notifications
Tap Hide notifications
6 Tap Hide all

Please note: you will still recieve critical notifications about your devices activity and status

Tap Hide all
7 Tap the back icon
Tap the back button
8 Tap Turn on now. Find out more about the do not disturb feature
Tap Turn on now

Turn off notifications for individual apps

1 Swipe up from your home screen, to access your apps
Swipe up
2 Tap Settings
Tap Settings
3 Tap Notifications
Tap notifications
4 Tap See all
Tap See all
5 You will be shown the apps that most recently sent you a notification. If you can't find the app you want to stop sending notifications, tap Most recent
Tap Most recent
6 Tap All
Tap All
7 Search for the app whose notifications you want to block. When you've found it, tap the switch next to it
Tap the switch next to the app

Even with your phone locked you can still be alerted to any important updates through notifications on the lock screen. This makes it easy to read messages and quickly see what's going on but could be an issue for those concerned with privacy.
 

You can adjust how notifications appear on your lock screen and Always On Display to give you as much or as little information as you need.

1 Swipe up from your home screen, to access your apps
Swipe up
2 Tap Settings
Tap Settings
3 Tap Lock screen
Tap Lock screen
4 Tap Notifications
Tap notifications
5 Tap the switch if you want to turn off notifications for the lock screen and Always On Display
Tap the switch to turn off lock screen and Always On Display notifications
6 If you would like notifications to appear on the lock screen but not the Always On Display, tap Show on Always On Display
Tap Show on Always On Display
7 If you're happy to have notifications on your lock screen you can change how they look and what they show. Tap View style
Tap View style
8 You can choose from Detailed, Icons only and Brief. Tap the view style that you prefer

Detailed view

Detailed view style

Icons only view

Icon only view style

Brief view

Brief view style
9 If you would like to prevent the contents of your notifications from appearing on your lock screen, tap Hide content
Tap Hide content
10 Drag the slider to adjust the transparency of your notifications
Drag the slider to adjust the transparency
11 Tap Auto-reverse text colour to automatically reverse the colour of notification text based on the colour of your background
Tap Auto-reverse colour

With your phone in your pocket it can be hard to tell what app has just sent you a notification. Luckily, you can customise your notifications for each app to change how they alert you and what type of notifications they display. 

1 Swipe up from your home screen, to access your apps
Swipe up
2 Tap Settings
Tap Settings
3 Tap Notifications
Tap Notifications
4 Tap See all
Tap See all
5 You will be shown the apps that most recently sent you a notification. If you can't find the app you want to customise, tap Most recent
Tap Most recent
6 Tap All
Tap All
7 Find and tap on the app that you want to customise. For this example we are customising the Calendar notifications

Please note: depending on the app you choose, the notifications you can customise will be different. For example, the Calendar app will have different option to the messaging app

Tap the app you want to customise
8 Tap App icon badges to turn them off. App icon badges are the numbers that appear on an app to show you that you have a new notification
Tap App icon badges
9 Depending on the app you are customising, it may have multiple categories of notification. This allows you to customise the different types of notification separately. Tap the category you want to customise
Tap the category of notification you want to customise
10 Tap Notification style to select how you receive notifications from this app. The available options are: Sound and pop-up, Sound, Silent and Silent and minimised
Tap Notification style
11 Tap Sound to change what sound is played when you receive a notification from this app. You can choose from the selection of Galaxy sounds
Tap sound to change how the notification sounds
12 Tap Vibrate to turn vibration on and off for these notifications
Tap vibrate to turn vibration on or off
13 Tap App icon badges to turn them on or off for these notifications
Tap App icon badges
14 Tap Lock screen to change whether these notifications appear on your lock screen. The available options are: Show content, Hide content and Don't show notifications
Tap Lock screen to change how these notification appear on your lock screen
15 Tap Ignore Do not disturb to allow these notifications to show even when Do not disturb is active. Find out more about the Do not disturb feature
Tap ignore Do not disturb to allow these notifications even when Do not disturb mode is on

If you aren't receiving notifications, try these suggestions to troubleshoot the issue.

1 Check to see if your device is on mute. If your device is on mute, there won't be any sound when you receive a notification. Go to Settings > Sounds and vibration > Sound mode
2 Make sure that your device isn't on Do not disturb mode. Go to Settings > Notifications > Do not disturb
3 Check that your notifications are turned on. Go to Settings > Notifications > App icon badges
4 Are your apps sleeping? To save battery power, some apps can be put to sleep in the background. They may not be able to receive updates or send you notifications.

Go to Settings > Device care > Battery > Options (this will appear as three dots in the top right corner) > Settings > Sleeping apps
5 Check for software updates. You can do this by going to Settings > Software update. Find out more about updating your device
6 Turn your device off and on again. Restarting your device clears out temporary files and can often solve the problem
7 If you're still experiencing difficulties it may help to send an error report through the Samsung members app. This allows us to take a look at what is happening and find a solution to your problem

If you're experiencing unusual behaviour on Samsung mobiles, tablets or wearables, you can send us an error report or ask us a question in the Samsung Members app.
 

This allows us to a closer look at what is happening. The data is anonymised and only held for the duration of the investigation. Find out more about sending an error report through the Samsung Members app.

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