One of the principal advantages of Android has always been its notifications system. Unfortunately, there are app developers who abuse this system to annoy you by sending lots of promos, updates, etc. You could just delete apps with over-the-top notifications, but there’s a better way. Read on to find out how you can get rid of useless notifications on different versions of Android.
Android 10
The newest version has alerting and silent notifications to offer. The first type is a regular notification because of which your phone rings or vibrates; the alert also can be seen as an icon on top of your screen. The silent notifications don’t do that, but you can find them if you open the notification panel.
To make regular notifications silent, open the notification panel.
Select and hold the notification.
Then toggle on Silent and save the changes.
To block notifications entirely, switch the toggle you can find on the right off.
You can also have a wider variety of settings options if you go to Details.
Remember that system apps (for example, software updates) are essential, so you can’t make them silent.
Android 9.0 Pie
Just long-press on the notification and the option to Stop notifications will appear.
Another way is to tap the information icon (“i”) at the top-right corner and then to go into the settings of the app. There you’ll be able to select Notifications and pick what you do and don’t want to get from that app.
There’s one more way to manage notifications. Go into Settings => Apps & notifications => Notifications => App notifications. There you’ll be able to see the notifications you’ve been getting. For convenience, you have an option to sort the alerts by Most recent or Most frequent and turn the annoying ones off.
Android 8.0 Oreo
In this version, you have more fine-tuned control in this aspect than ever before. Tapping an alert in Android 8.0 Oreo will open the app, whereas swiping it from right to left will close the notification.
However, if you swipe partly of the way, you’ll see two icons.
The gear icon allows you to block notifications from the app that sent it.
Or you can see a simple toggle that turns notifications off for a particular app.
Another way is to click on All categories to see precisely what information that app sends and then toggle them off separately.
If you tap on the clock icon, you can snooze the notification for some time.
To have more control over the notifications, go to Settings => Apps & notifications => Notifications= > App notifications. In this case, you can tap the specific apps and choose what notifications you need them to send.
There’s also an option to turn off all lock screen notifications if you go to Settings => Apps & notifications => Notifications => On the lock screen => Don’t show notifications at all.
Android 7.0 Nougat
If you tap on the notification, this will open the app, and if you swipe it right to left, this will close it.
To get access to a gear icon, you have to swipe ever so slightly from right to left. The gear icon will give you the option to silence or block alerts from that app.
If you need to make further changes, click on More settings at the bottom. This will allow you to visit the app’s notification page.
If you’d like to set notification rules for everything, go to Settings => Notifications. Then choose All apps in the drop-down menu. Select all apps in question one by one and review its notification settings.
Android 5.0 Lollipop and above
Android 5.0 Lollipop was a big improvement in terms of offering users much more control over the notifications comparing to the previous versions. For the first time, users had a special notification section which gave them the opportunity to switch off some notifications.
When you see something in your notification shade, simply long-press it to go to the notification page via the “i” icon. It’s a short way to the app’s notification page.
Another way to do the same is this: Settings => Sound & notification => App notifications.
We hope that this information will help you to block all the useless notifications and be updated about the important stuff at the same time!
