How to Manage Your Increasingly Desperate App Noti...

My greatest good friend messaged me on Fb Messenger. It wasn’t pressing, so I swiped the notification away, making a psychological be aware to answer later. Ten minutes later, Fb sends one other notification. “Reminder: [My friend] despatched you a message.” That is clingy, even for Fb. And it’s not the one app more and more determined for any crumb of consideration.

In simply the final couple months, I’ve personally gotten dozens of what I can solely name desperation notifications. Push alerts from apps that don’t actually need something, however would like it if I gave them some consideration anyway. These embody, however will not be almost restricted to, the next:

• The Disney+ app let me know that as a result of I watched The Simpsons, I could be fascinated by watching The Simpsons Film (which I additionally just lately watched).

• Discord knowledgeable me that somebody in a server I am additionally in up to date their standing, which is, I assume, a factor you are able to do in Discord.

• Venmo would really like me to know I can fund my Kalshi account with my Venmo stability. (I don’t and can by no means have a Kalshi account.)

• Reddit started sending push alerts for information tales from communities I wasn’t subscribed to and had by no means visited.

• Duet despatched an aggressive half-dozen notifications inside quarter-hour of closing the app, together with a number of alerts that learn “She simply likes you.” Which is a surprisingly exasperated tone for a courting app.

• GrubHub requested me if I needed to order meals, exactly 5 minutes after I ordered meals.

A few of these are clearly simply commercials disguised as alerts—its personal annoying drawback—however simply as many appear to be little greater than a reminder that an app exists. And when you might please open the app and enhance its engagement numbers, that might be nice.

Are app notifications actually getting worse?

Wow, I hadn’t considered that, thanks Disney+.
Credit score: Lifehacker

Whereas it’s all the time arduous to quantify vibes-based annoyances, there’s not less than some knowledge to again up the concept corporations are getting more and more determined to your notification consideration. In line with a 2025 analysis from the Reuters Institute for the Research of Journalism, information publishers have more and more relied on push notifications to achieve their audiences, as a option to keep away from relying an excessive amount of on platforms like Google or social media apps.

Nonetheless, this bid for direct consideration comes at a value—and within the midst of an arms race with platforms. In line with the Reuters report, 79% of respondents don’t get any information alerts in any respect, and 43% of these are as a result of customers actively disabled the notifications. Worse but, iOS and Android have each experimented with questionably reliable AI summaries of notifications, making them much more annoying to take care of.

This report solely examines one small phase of the notifications you would possibly sift via on any given day, however it’s instructive of a broader development. We more and more dwell in an consideration economic system, the place seemingly unrelated industries are in competitors to your eyeballs. Which is how you find yourself with corporations like Netflix investing in video games, or the online game business competing with gambling sites and porn.

In that context, your notifications turn out to be the frontline within the battle to your consideration. No, it doesn’t take a genius to know that somebody who watched The Simpsons could be fascinated by watching The Simpsons. But when a fast notification can remind me to observe extra of the present at the moment, somewhat than play extra Pathologic 3, that’s a win for Disney.

And any win goes to be price it to most corporations proper now. Broadly talking, the economy isn’t doing so hot. So, if an organization can do one thing to indicate that engagement of their app went up by even 5%, they possible will. And sending extra notifications is usually one of many cheaper and simpler methods to juice inside numbers.

Easy methods to lower app notification spam

Credit score: Lifehacker

There’s not less than one silver lining to the entire notification arms race drawback: There are a lot of instruments accessible to assist get your alerts underneath management. Some are baked proper into your cellphone’s OS, however there are additionally third-party instruments you need to use to implement some peace and quiet. Listed below are a number of the greatest choices accessible.

Use your cellphone’s OS-level settings to handle notifications

Each main smartphone platforms have fairly sturdy instruments to dictate what sort of alerts you possibly can obtain, and the way disruptive they are often. We’ve full guides on instruments for managing your Android and iOS notifications, however even when you don’t need to dive too deep into your cellphone’s settings, you possibly can slowly whittle away probably the most annoying alerts as you obtain them.

On Android, you possibly can long-press a notification in your shade to search out choices to tweak or suppress the alerts. Most notifications may be sorted into both Precedence, Default, or Silent, which behave otherwise relying in your default settings. It’s also possible to faucet the Settings gear icon to dive into the app’s particular notification settings to disable classes of alerts. These will range by app, however in lots of circumstances you possibly can disable issues like commercials or information alerts with out turning off messages you truly care about.

On iOS, you’ll find related instruments by swiping on a notification and tapping Choices. Right here, you’ll discover fast shortcuts to do issues like mute notifications from an app for a brief time period, or soar to extra in-depth settings to disable classes of notifications. In my expertise, it’s usually simpler to tweak these settings each time I obtain a very annoying alert, somewhat than audit all my notification settings directly.

Discover every app’s notification settings

Most apps have their very own class of notification settings that may be adjusted individually. In some circumstances, these can overlap with the identical settings you’ll discover utilizing the above technique, however simply as usually, you’ll discover much more toggles that don’t. Although, some apps are shadier than others when it comes to how simple it’s to search out these settings.

For one instructive instance, within the Reddit app, you possibly can navigate to Settings > Account Settings > Handle notifications to discover a prolonged record of potential alerts you possibly can obtain. That’s already fairly buried, however when you signal into the app with a number of accounts, you’ll have to undergo this course of for every account you’re signed into. In any other case, notifications you turned off for one account would possibly nonetheless pop up by way of one other.

Most apps aren’t fairly this chaotic, however it may well nonetheless be annoying to dig via all of the tedious menus. In some circumstances, this could be your solely choice, although. On Android, Reddit solely has one notification class utilizing the earlier technique, which means you possibly can solely flip all notifications on or off directly. So, when you’re not discovering the instruments you’ll want to selectively mute sure alerts within the OS-level settings, it could be price digging via the app’s menus.

When all else fails, use third-party instruments

It shouldn’t actually be needed to put in an app simply to get different apps to close up, but when we should, then we should. BuzzKill, for Android, is an easy $4 app that provides you extra sturdy instruments to filter, handle, or suppress notifications than any of the built-in notification administration settings.

What units BuzzKill aside is that, on high of filtering notifications by which app is sending them, it may well additionally filter alerts by issues like phrases they comprise, whether or not they have a picture hooked up, or whether or not they’re a part of a gaggle chat. So, if you wish to preserve getting information alerts, however you’re simply sick of listening to about that one man who’s all the time within the headlines for some cause, you possibly can selectively filter these out.

Sadly, this one’s more likely to keep Android solely, as iOS usually retains apps in tighter sandboxes. BuzzKill wants to have the ability to learn notifications from different apps as a way to filter them, and that’s not one thing iOS usually permits apps to do. So, when you’re within the Apple ecosystem, you’ll have to stay with built-in instruments for now.

Extra broadly, it can also’t damage to let app builders know if you’re irritated by their incessant pings. Corporations would possibly attempt to enhance their engagement by testing how a lot they will poke your consideration span earlier than you flip them off (or uninstall the app) completely. However turning off pointless alerts can ship a sign that they’ve gone too far within the unsuitable course. Sending suggestions stories, the place potential, can doubtlessly ship an excellent stronger sign.