Ask Lemmy

I let the apps have a chance, but if they drop a notification when it wasn't needed I remove the privilege. Unless it's a game, then it's insta muted.

Disable everything except email and WhatsApp, also SMS for deliveries

Why the fuck would you have BBC News notify you that Pol Pot won Strictly Come Dancing?!?

Never understood why people would leave notifications on for everything, except to have their phone beep in public to make them seem popular, maybe?

As few as possible, meaning immediate communication apps and a couple that monitor devices. A few more can notify if they’re running.

Yes, and UberEats in particular is big mad about it. It brings me joy to tap "Deny" everytime it asks me to turn them back on.

The only notifications I get are texts/calls, and a couple smart-home things that are set to warn me about temps or when a light-timer turns on or off. Not even social media, especially not social media, get to interrupt my day.

I know I want some of them and I don't have infinite apps, so whichever one's irritate me after a few notifications I long press and disable that notification.

After a few weeks or so you just get the notification you care about

All of them? No.

My messaging apps get to notify me. Everything else gets to fuck off.

It’s on for Messaging apps, email, and specific apps I with want or need notifications for. I don’t have it on for any social media apps, I check those on my own time when I please. All sounds are off thanks to my Apple Watch that vibrates.

Ya, I only allow them for apps that I want to be notified for like email, Lemmy, etc basically messaging stuff.

If you don't then some app somewhere is going to send you an ad as a "notification" which pisses me off to no end.

Android user here. I have five different classes of notifications:

1. Completely off, notifications blocked. Any category that doesn't give me actionable notifications or notifications based on something I've explicitly asked for is here. All streaming apps and games are here. Any app that tries to send me an ad in a notification gets this treatment. Almost every social media category also gets this setting, though there are a couple notable exceptions I'll get to later. All notifications that are not important and not urgent go here.

2. On, but delivered silently and minimized. "Silently" might be a bit of a misnomer here since I rarely have sound on, but this also means no vibration. The notifications are also minimized in the notification shade and go to the bottom of the list. This is where my new email notifications go, because I've got my inbox pretty well filtered down and only things that are actionable are allowed to stay unread in the inbox. Basically this is for anything that's important but not urgent.

3. Silent. See above for "silent" disclaimer. This section is for notifications that are urgent but may or may not be important; notifications from my cameras, for instance, or headlines from a news org. I also allow selected categories of Mastodon and Lemmy notifications through: only messages typed out by another human, though. Not likes or reposts.

4. Vibrate/sounds. For notifications that are both important and usually urgent. Text messages, Discord messages (from friends only), Slack messages while working. 2FA checkins. Most notifications from my library. Delivery notifications. The notification that my garage door has been left open (it happens a lot). Also, unfortunately, I have to have Instagram DMs in this category, because my wife sends me memes and they're always really good.

5. Vibrate/sounds and override Do Not Disturb. This category is for VERY urgent and VERY important notifications. Messages from family members (though not group messages). Notifications from my alarm system. The doorbell.

I do also use BuzzKill to finesse messages that I think are delivered in the wrong Android categories; like the stupid notifications my cameras always send about cold weather. I know it's cold, and I know that'll affect your battery life. I don't need to be told every time the temperature dips below 40°F, but I do still want to know when somebody is trying to get into my garage.

I only allow messaging services that my friends and family use, calendar, and alarms.

I check everything else often enough on my own without any notifications.

Most of them.

I get notified for

• Calls
• SMS
• WhatsApp (yuck, but a few friends use it)
• Signal
• Tinder
• DuoLingo

Tinder seems to be "buggy" and won't accept that I want to be notified for new messages and matches, but not for anything else.

Nothing else is supposed to send me a notification. I don't really use social media (other than this, if it counts), so that helps.

Everything disabled except calls, iCloud stuff (iMessage, health, calendar, etc), emails, Snapchat and local weather alerts.

I get notifications for text messages, nothing else. The phone is not the boss of me. I am the boss of the phone.

I disable notifications for everything I can, but some need to stay enabled. My line of work means I need to leave email notifications on, for example. Texts and other messaging apps are on too, because otherwise I'll go days without talking to people. My blue light filter app also has a spot of the notification bar, so that I can always turn it off and on when I want to.

I'm not very aggressive about disabling[0] notifications. I don't install apps that try to sell me stuff or otherwise manipulate me though so it's rare I get unwanted notifications.

Quite a few commercial apps have perfectly good websites, and I use those in preference to apps most of the time.

[0] Technically just not enabling; Android now requires them to ask for permission before sending any

I generally only use non-commercial apps, so never really had any problem...

Email, Signal and SMS get notifications. Literally everything else is off, and I use Buzzkill to shorten the vibrate. I have ASD, and run my own business, so I get literally 30-40 SMS/200+ Signal notifications a day, and the constant BZZZZ BZZZZ actually causes me an immense amount of sensory overload. Buzzkill ensures that vibration pattern is nothing more than a very quick sub-half second, one-off buzz. The number of apps I actually have installed is so few, I can literally fit them on one screen, no scrolling required, and I check for the few app updates I'll need manually each day.

Only notifications I want are calls/texts and my security cameras.

I don't care to know if I got a reply on YouTube, or Lemmy, or a new email. I can always check that stuff at my leisure.

No, but I tend to disable a bunch of the categories. If it makes it hard to avoid BS/irrelevant/uninteresting/"fake" notifications, notification perms go away, or the whole app does, usually with a free one-star rating. (As if that realistically matters)

Yes, initially, then I will enable them as I need them, not as the app wants them.

I bought an app to get heads up of northern lights, at first I disabled notifications, but that made the app pointless, so I have allowed some notifications.

Other than that, I only have notifications on my message app.

SMS and Signal are the only things that are always on. Email is on during business hours. Other than that, they're always off.

I remove permissions for notifications from all apps that I am able to except for sms/text & phone calls.

I usually deep sleep all apps that I don't need to run constantly, and their notifications get disabled along with them.

So really I end up with only the core apps to receive notifications from. Usually apps related to communications.

I have notifications active, but notification sound default to none. For apps I want a sound reminder (calendar and pm in chat apps), I set another sound.

Apps are like friends. I WANT them to talk to me, just not until I i tell them to.

I usually don't allow notifications for most apps other than messaging and some YouTube . Anything else like Lemmy I just check when I open the app .

Nope. I got the ADHD. I need the robot to remind me about things. It'd make some of you sick how many notifications I get. I have notifications turned on for every channel in two Discord servers. Traffic on them is usually slow to modest, but still. Lemmy is the only platform I use daily that isn't allowed any notifications because I've been using forums for about twenty years and don't often forget to check in here.

My rule of thumb, if a notification is not immediately actionable, and necessary - that notification gets disabled.

Your delivery has arrived: timely and actionable, that notification can stay

Please rate your delivery: not timely, not necessary, that notification gets removed

I’m not as strict as some people here but I rarely blanket allow notifications and I aggressively manage the settings. Like I allow some apps to show temporary banners if I’m using the phone but don’t allow badges or access to the Notification Center or Lock Screen (or my watch). And I’ll occasionally allow an app like DoorDash that has in-app notification settings where you can turn off non-essential ones.

Basically, I treat my Notification Center as a place for time-sensitive, actionable alerts. If an app can’t stick to that, I’ll either kill notifications for it or dive into the settings.

I also use Focuses (foci?) to limit things to just essentials (like messaging, phone, etc.) further if I’m working or at dinner or something. Like my “At Work” focus lets through work emails and essential Teams chats.

I allow notifications on everything but games unless they have ruined it for themselves otherwise or have a valid reason to exist such as a war game that is alerting you you are being attacked.

I also have all notifications disabled, except the ones I really need (texts, calls, calendar, email and others like this). I don't like that every time I look at my phone to have tens or hundreds of notifications that I am not interested in, I want to have only what I need to see.

I have all notifications turned off except the following:

Texts, calls, and calendar events are the only things that can make sound or vibrate.

Discord, Snapchat, and OneDrive* pop up but they're silent. (*I have like 100k pictures going back 20+ years and like seeing the On This Day galleries)

It's the first thing I do when installing a new app, as most prompt for it on first launch, and I reject it immediately. I can always allow them later, but it's been my default mode since iOS started letting you control them.

For email and work IM's, my phone shows only the badge, no sound. Signal, SMS, and the phone app get sounds, too. That's it, silence on everything else.

Not the apps I want notifications for.