I would love to use this, but I don't want to allow a third party app with closed source to read all my notifications. This can read OTP passwords, full messages, etc. so it must be open source for me to consider it.
I would donate/pay for this if it was open source on F-Droid.
Kudos to you for building it. I put off building this exact same application so many times it's not even funny. Too bad I'm too lazy to maintain something like this.
>I would love to use this, but I don't want to allow a third party app with closed source to read all my notifications. This can read OTP passwords, full messages, etc. so it must be open source for me to consider it.
The app lacks the INTERNET permission so it can't really exfiltrate data even if it wanted to.
This is correct, but it is still a slippery slope. At some point the dev ends up adding internet permission (might be for legit reasons too), and lo and behold you are sharing your data. For something as sensitive as notifications, I really can't trust anything but open-source app which is vetted by a few seasoned people and hosted on F-droid.
Also non-GrapheneOS Android. I'm on CrDroid (Android 16), ans if I go into "Settings -> Apps -> Some App -> Mobile data usage", there's a toggle for "Allow internet access", and a few more to control network access on Wi-Fi, cellular, background, and VPN.
Would a safe alternative (albeit annoying to update) be to side load the apk for the purpose of eliminating the possibility of auto updates brought on by an app store?
That's another pet peeve of mine: Why the hell can't we block internet access for apps in (native) Android? Everything else is a permission, but this is not, somehow.
ADs work via play services so even if you block internet for the app the ADs will continue to work.
The reason many apps stop showing ADs when their internet is blocked is because they need to make an API call to their own servers before running the AD. That is the common behavior but not mandatory
Google is invested into you having WiFi all the time.
Weirdly, my very old Nexus 6P with the WiFi off, could lie untouched for weeks, with almost no battery depletion. Yet if I turn the WiFi on with near stock Android (meaning no messengers, tens of email accounts, etc, to constantly ping _something_), it just eats the battery within 24 hours tops. Perhaps that’s just the module itself, but I remember flashing LineageOS and having better savings. I have no real numbers to support that right now, although I still have the phone lying around somewhere and could test this some day.
Modern Google Android will use neighbouring WiFi networks to guesstimate your location quickly, so it's scanning even when the toggle says "off" unless you disable it. This location can be queried in the background when nearby devices broadcast the equivalent to Apple's "find my" network broadcasts, because Google uses collected reports of beacons+location to roughly locate tags and such. Opting out of all of that stuff should massively improve standby battery time.
I've also noticed the difference between vendor+custom ROM with a Xiaomi device, which I use as a second phone around the house for controlling smart lights and such. The biggest difference there seems to be that I don't have as many apps installed and as many features enabled, because during active use and shortly after, the battery drains just as fast as (actually a bit faster than) when using the original ROM.
Many custom ROMs (at least the LineageOS-based ones) also don't do thing like configure the country code for the WiFi chip and GPS caches. A large part of the 5GHz spectrum simply doesn't exist (by default) on my custom ROM devices so there's just less to scan in the background.
I have an S25 Ultra with the latest version of Android, and these options don't seem to be there at all. I don't have a "data usage" under Permissions for any apps. I do have a Mobile Data section under App Info for any given app, but there's no way to toggle the options you mentioned.
You can on some devices (many Chinese brands, funnily enough) and on custom ROMs.
There are also (open source) firewall apps that will let you block (non-system) apps if you're on a stock ROM like me.
Technically, this is a permission, just not a user-grantable one. Google has moved quite a few permissions from inherent to user-grantable, but most apps don't work without internet (unfortunately) so I doubt they will do it for the internet permission in stock android.
Lacking INTERNET permission today does not guarantee that the app will never have that permission. The internet permission is considered a "normal" permission by android so it will be auto granted without even a notification to the user.
Moreover an app without internet permission can still send data out using "INTENTS" for other apps in Android. This can make an app dangerous even without internet permission.
I was excited about the application and was dissapointed to see that it was closed source. I will absolutely not trust anyone that I cannot sue with this data. Big companies at least follow some standards that are enforced by multiple governments here we know nothing.
Do you mean a no-internet app (like this) could write data locally in a way that another internet-enabled app (in cahoots) could locally receive? Like a non-sandboxed storage area? Seems plausible.
yes that and internet permission can be added later and pushed with an update. Unless you are checking permissions after every update you will not know.
It's automatically granted but the app needs to declare it in order to access internet. Because of that it's not enough that the app _currently_ doesn't request internet permissions, because if it ever starts, it would be mostly transparent to a user
I would greatly appreciate it, if this was open source :)
Especially since this will be able to read 2FA codes sent by SMS.
(I get that SMS 2FA codes are not perfectly safe to begin with, I personally don't love them either, but they are still used on a bunch of services)
I'm going to join the list of voices requesting open source here. If you're not planning to charge money for this, there are several benefits starting with increased trust.
Mobile apps are a cesspool of user-hostile behavior, and I have a strong preference for not giving closed source apps access to sensitive data.
Putting on my CISO hat, if they release the source, someone else could then create an app, but this time maliciously with said exfiltration of information, and publish it on play with paid ad time.
It's something i've also vaguely thought about building myself, because god damn uber, how many times do you need to send me an advert for uber one? just tell me when my car is here.
so congrats to the author of this. I do agree that I'd prefer it open sourced too, it feels a bit risky it having access to all your notifications.
Just blocking access to internet for this one app is not enough. It can use intents or a shared local storage with some other app to send the data out.
IDK if I would consider not blindly trusting an unknown third party to read all my notifications being paranoid, but if it is, then yeah, I guess I am.
I've used F-droid merely due to the open source guarantee, so how fast these apps are patched isn't a deal-breaker for me, but I'll definitely look into Obtanium now.
As a developer, the fact that F-Droid now compiles all your packages for you, using their own keys, is a non-starter for me. It means they are free to modify my code however they want or inject malware etc. (whether by mistake or not), and it's totally outside of my control, but still has my name on it.
I guess we can't win, can we? I worried more about random developers getting compromised since the surface area is much larger, but at the same time one entity compiling all packages makes them a more attractive target.
We've seen the released bundles being different to the source code before too AFAIR, so whether it's a single repository or F-Droid, both can easily screw users up if compromised.
I don't want to be paranoid but the world's not making it easy.
Absolutely! It is a sovereignty software effectively, it could be OSS only, otherwise treated as "soon to turn into bloatware cash-cow to death". There is no other way to gain trust, but staying closed source is a way to confirm distrust. If dev scared about monetization that much, that's a pre-bloatware effectively.
I’m now an iOS user but the problem is actually the same here : apps not respecting communication channels to push ads (mostly to their own app or service). I usually fully block notifications from most apps but for some apps the notifications are really convenient (carpooling, transport or delivery app).
Yes I want to know if the train I booked is delayed. No I don’t want to be notified that you are now partnering with another transport company and that you are sharing 5% off coupons to try it…
I systematically give a 1 star review explaining the issue and mail the devs if possible. I even think that Apple Store and Play Store ToSs are against this practice but they are not enforcing it sadly…
Worse even because iOS doesn't offer notification groups/channels like Android does (ignoring the fact that market leaders like Uber, DoorDash, etc. eschew them in favor of "General" channels they can pump both delivery/ride info and ads through.)
IMO this needs to be an app guideline enforced by the iOS App Store and Play Store. I remember back in the day, iOS used to be known for having less spammy notifications.
I remember when I first started seeing obvious ads in notifications and assumed Apple would come down hard. I wish I had been right.
If any app abuses the notifications at all I turn them all off, that's the only way to stop it. If the notifications are required for the app's operation, well, then I have to delete the app.
Society has fucked itself over allowing these to exist.
My United Healthcare app told me I had 43 notifications. I just turned it off. There’s literally never a time they need to notify me via a push notification on my phone.
Society has fucked itself over allowing everyone to be dependant on software entirely from two american companies.
20 years ago the idea that I'd have to have an account with an american company so as to be able to interact with so much of my on-another-continent society would be ridiculous!
Maybe this matters at the bottom end of the market, but it's mainly the top players I see take this approach to notifications. DoorDash, Uber, and the social media platforms all have incentive to stay on the official app stores.
I expect the bottom end of the market is also dependent on the official app stores to make money. What real alternatives do users have, especially with sideloading on Android now requiring Google bless your APK anyway? (edit: Looks like Google has started to walk this back slightly. Even still. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...)
I chose the hard way and disabled them anyway. If I want to know if a train is delayed, I check. If I wait for a driver, I check. Actually the latter is better as I'm not surprised by the guy arriving but can synchronize well. And frankly, I don't complain.
And every evening or so I sit down on my computer and check WhatsApp notifications on web.whatsapp.com to catch up with what's going on in groups people added me to. I find this quite good for my well-being.
Here is a fun story. Just like you, I too live in a “gated community”, and we also default to MyGate. We have a founders group in there, and the things with MyGate and its irritations would sometimes come up. We all would wink and go about our days. The founder of MyGate is in the group and is one of the neighbors. We sometimes teased that we would just camp out outside his home, asking him to fix these excessive notification issues and bugs, and to add/edit features. ;-)
Another founder friend lives in a different mid-sized community and was using MyGate. He got pissed not just at the ads but at the massive data gathering—contacts, camera, flashlight, and everything. He ended up creating https://dobermanapp.com
That doberman site feels kind of sketchy. It doesn’t say anything about the hardware required or how someone would integrate this. Also it says it’s free but then one of the five top level pages is the SLA which says it doesn’t apply to free plans. I really don’t understand if this is just a random landing page that someone created to gauge interest or what.
My solution to this problem was to have my phone permanently on silent. The logic being - there was nothing so urgent 25 years ago that couldn't be solved by an asynchronous answering machine message checked once a day; why do I need moment to moment updates now.
Nowadays I'd probably use a tool like yours. My partner is going through legitimate withdrawal symptoms after two years of short-form content addiction. Turning off all notifications was one of the first things I did for them.
At least on iOS, internet call is treated basically the same as cellular, showing a splash caller screen and ringing if not on silent. This means that it's trivial to setup phone in such a way that no notification gets through but calls do, even with sound.
I turn off notifications for every app except calls and messages; it's fine because almost no-one ever calls or texts anymore (Whatsapp messages can wait until I look at them).
Turning the phone on silent isn't really a solution since it still pollutes the screen (and the history) with useless notifications.
Even when checking once a day, it's still worse with spam notifications. It's like getting 20 spam phone calls on your answering machine between the real ones.
Consider using another bank. Maybe there's a higher tolerance for that kind of bullshit in the US but I've never seen a single notification from my bank. If it sent me spam I would assume they got hacked.
The problem is that the energy it takes to switch banks is way too high given the inconvenience, and they know. This applies to many small annoyances that are not big enough to vote with your feet, so companies abuse these things. Classic dark patterns.
It might be worth a few days work. It's a shame so many people choose convenience over principle, that's what the bad actors rely on. Stop participating. If changing banks is too much effort maybe doing the banking from the browser instead of their app is a compromise.
Android (at least on Pixel) recently added a notification spam detection system, under the name "Notification Organizer". Unfortunately they don't let you block the spam, only deprioritize it. So it won't make noise, but you still have to manually dismiss it from the notification drawer. The PMs almost had the right idea...
Luckily on Android you can use Tasker and the AutoNotification plugin to block specific notifications that bug you. And I guess this app is now another alternative. I don't know how iOS people live without the ability to do this. My wife, who uses iOS, is constantly complaining about annoying notifications and there's nothing I can do to help her.
> I don't know how iOS people live without the ability to do this. My wife, who uses iOS, is constantly complaining about annoying notifications and there's nothing I can do to help her.
I’m on iOS and as soon as an app sends me a spammy notification I just go into settings and turn off notifications for it. Though honestly most of the time I just don’t allow notifications in the first place.
I'm currently using BuzzKill[1] for managing notifications on android. It's so good (and beautiful) that even though I use iPhone as primary device, I receive most of my notifications on android and relay it to my iPhone using a Termux script[2] after putting it through BuzzKill.
I understand that your USP is logging which BuzzKill also provides with numerous actions and Tasker integration on top of it.
It's great that DoNotNotify is free, but if any android app deserves to be paid for its BuzzKill. Perhaps being open-source could be a better differentiator for DoNotNotify?
This looks nice! I had no idea you could actually control notifications as an app.
One thing I've always wanted is the ability to "group" notifications.
Apps like WhatsApp can be really bad for pinging lots of times within a minute for individual messages. I really don't need my phone to buzz more than once every five minutes, and wish I could set rules like "don't buzz for x minutes after a notification".
Since Android 15, Google Pixel phones have a "notification cooldown" that sort of fixes this. Hopefully it makes it's way to all Android phones at some point.
The play store should reject apps that use audible notifications other than those controlled by Android platform notification permissions. Making a user dig through an obscure multiple layer settings jungle to track down and kill annoying notifications is a dark pattern and deserves de-platforming. I'm looking at you, Facebook.
One can also use the Facebook website. It's almost usable on the Firefox mobile to the extent that you can check the news feed or notifications and reply to a comment, but anything more involved is very annoying (so you end up not doing this and long-term using Facebook less, which is a good thing)
Step 1: Within the Facebook App (Most Important)
Open the Facebook app.
Tap the Menu icon (three lines/your profile picture) > Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Scroll to Notifications (under "Notifications and Permissions").
Tap Notifications, then select Push notifications.
Toggle off all notification types (Comments, Likes, Tags, Birthdays, etc.) and turn off the main Push Notifications toggle.
Check Email & SMS Notifications and Mobile Push Notifications to disable any lingering alerts there.
Step 2: In Android System Settings
Open your phone's Settings app.
Go to Apps, Apps & notifications, or Applications (depending on your Android version).
Find and tap on Facebook.
Tap Notifications.
Turn the main All Facebook notifications toggle OFF (it should turn gray).
Step 3: For Browser-Based Notifications (Pop-ups)
Open your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) on your phone.
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Notifications.
Find Facebook in the allowed list and block it, or remove it entirely.
If They Still Persist (Advanced)
Check for app updates: Sometimes updates reset settings; re-apply Step 1 and 2.
Use a third-party blocker: Apps like Freedom or similar tools can block the app or its notifications at a system level.
Restrict Background Data: In Android Settings > Apps > Facebook > Mobile data & Wi-Fi, you can restrict background data usage.
I use an app called BuzzKill on Android for achieving this and many more things.
I usually keep my notification bar at an absolute minimum when it comes to the number of notifications, but this app allows me to set rules for notifications based on their content.
By default, all apps that I use have notifications turned off by default and they also get into deep sleep mode. So I'm sure they are not even running after a while. Only apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Signal can receive notifications. And by using the rules on Buzzkill, I am also able to automatically discard marketing notifications and useless notifications from these apps as well.
For an app like Google Maps though, I completely turned off notifications because there's really no need for me to have them. If you go into the notification settings through the Google Maps app, it's a big shitshow because it has some 40 categories that you will have to manually manage and I'm sure this was designed for the very purpose of letting users become tired after looking at them and then leave things as is.
Similarly, I do think the vast majority of the apps that we use don't need to send us any notifications at all. Thanks to Android for adding this feature to block all notifications from apps some four years ago, I guess.
Glad there are other options! Before Buzzkill I used another app that stopped being maintained and then stopped working on newer Androids. I had to deal with notifications for a year before I found Buzzkill.
I have an Android phone and it's constantly set to 'Do not disturb'. I only have a couple of people that are exempt (you can do that in the settings). Because of this I am not too fussed about even occasional extra notification, because I deal with all of them when I have time.
Personally it just grates me when my notifications stack up (even if I wasn't disturbed when the notifications came in). My philosophy is - I should be able to control what I see, hence this app.
This is great! Looking forward to using it. Especially the rule-based filtering function, as my biggest sore spot with notifications are the few handful of highly functional apps that stuff marketing notifications into notification groups that are not marked for marketing.
I'm kinda surprised to hear people having this problem on Android. I've found Android's notification management to be superb and, as others have said, with a one strike rule, this has been a non-issue for me.
> I live in a gated society that uses an app called MyGate to allow visitors, and the app intentionally pushes ads through the same channels since you cannot block them.
This strikes me as against the Play Store policy, potentially Notifications VX-S1, "Notifications are not used for cross-promotion or advertising another product, as this is strictly prohibited by the Play Store."
Facebook Messenger constantly tells you shit like "Hey, it's been 1 minute since someone messaged you, you better check it out!", Uber Eats is constantly telling me about meal deals even directly after I just ordered food on Uber Eats, and now it's giving me Uber ads implying the only thing stopping me from going out is that I haven't ordered an Uber, despite my history of only using it once a year when out of country and that I JUST ORDERED FOOD TO MY HOUSE!
You can't turn these off without never getting FB Messenger messages or notices of if your food has arrived because no one knows how to ring a fucking doorbell anymore even if the note specifically says to :/
I only have "Your Order" notifications allowed for Uber Eats which will only send notifications about my specific order and I think reminding me to tip if I didn't already? That seems to be a subcategory at least.
Anecdotally, I've never received anything other than those notifications.
I only use Facebook Messenger for Facebook Marketplace, so I don't have much interaction with it, but I see "Reminders" as a category of notification, try turning that off.
My approach to this problem is to not install apps that could be websites, and to remove apps that send me useless notifications. Some apps use notification categories, which gives the user some control.
A feature that would make this app useful to me is a notification digest as a third option in addition to allow and deny. The digest would hold certain notifications and show them to me all at once on a schedule I set.
For a concrete use case, I have low-priority group chats and high-priority direct messages in the same messaging app. I want the direct messages to interrupt me at any time, and I want to be told I have unread group chats a couple times a day without having to poll them manually.
The wild part about all these notification-firewall concepts is that we keep re‑creating the same tool in closed source. Why not ship it as open source, charge for the hosted rulesets or ML models, and let people audit the code they’re literally piping every OTP and DM through? “Trust us, we don’t phone home” isn’t a strategy anymore when GrapheneOS, NetGuard, and even Pixel’s Data Saver already cover 80% of the use cases. The only reason I can see for keeping it closed is that the real business model is eventually selling the telemetry back to the very advertisers it claims to block. Am I missing an actually compelling reason not to open it up?
Imho there are 3 separate classes of notifications
1) Ads - these should not exist, really, or at worst should be flagged in the app store as an anti-feature isolateable from other notifications.
2) "Recommendations" - that is, stuff you didn't subscribe to but are things the app offers that they "think you would like". These are defensible but should never ever be mixed with...
3) Stuff I actually explicitly subscribed to.
Breaking these rules should be rejection from the app store. Especially now that Google is legally required to allow 3rd-party app stores, they have much greater grounds to properly curate the Play Store. Let the filth live on 3rd-party stores.
Love the on-device approach. The fact that it never phones home is a huge differentiator — most "utility" apps these days are just data collection with a feature attached.
The regex filtering is clever. Have you thought about adding ML-based classification for notifications that are harder to catch with patterns? Something lightweight like a small on-device model could detect promotional vs. transactional notifications without needing manual rules.
Also curious about battery impact — how often does it process the notification stream?
> Have you thought about adding ML-based classification for notifications that are harder to catch with patterns?
Honestly that's a little out my league. The idea did occur to me, but I'm discouraged by the amount of compute required for most ML.
> Also curious about battery impact — how often does it process the notification stream?
The OS sends any new notification to the app (it is a push based approach) automatically. On my own phone, this app currently shows at the bottom of the list in battery usage (<1%).
there is a very similar app with much bigger history and (obviously) greater reputation: BuzzKill. [0] it's paid, available on Google Play, has tons of features and then some.
also, I bet that Android platform forbids you from requesting the internet permission if you use some "dangerous" permissions, e.g. reading notifications.
I've been happy with the solution of switching off notifications from apps that interrupt me with promotions - one strike and they're out.
The remaining notifications are _still_ frequent enough that no single app can expect to get my attention with a single buzz.
It's not like apps don't upsell to when I _open_ them and have to swipe away ads before I can use them. So why give them another channel?
25-years ago me is going to roll his eyes so hard, but you know where I don't mind slightly-targeted ads? My email & my doormat. Send me a catalogue, I love a catalogue.
> I've been happy with the solution of switching off notifications from apps that interrupt me with promotions - one strike and they're out.
I have exactly the same policy. But in my case I am forced to keep notifications enabled from apps like MyGate (since nobody would be able to visit me without it) and I have no say in the matter - my gated society uses it and my only way out is to pay for the app itself.
Ah OK - personally that would move it from an "annoying app with adverts" charge (that I'd resist) to a "leasehold bullshit" charge (that I'd pay).
I am stuck similarly with the ClassDojo app that my kids school uses to communicate with parents. The notifications are just "You have a new notification!" which leads to a slow app load, an upsell splash, before finally having to scroll to find the important message from a teacher. In this case though, paying would not make it any less slow to use.
I just check once a week instead, and the parents WhatsApp group fills in the gaps for me.
I also do my best to stick to a "one strike and they're out" personal policy.
But I also have apps that push marketing through notifications _and_ are urgent on a reoccurring basis (usually delivery or rideshare apps). For those, I'd love if there was a system notification setting (per app) for "allow notifications from this all for the next X hours" _and_ a simple UX to make that happen.
I guess I'm surprised that Android would allow one app to read/manage/block notifications from all other apps. I mean, I'm happy to have that kind of control over my phone, but it also seems like it could be viewed as a giant security hole? (Which would be a bit ironic given that Google is actively stamping out the ability for users to install apps that come from outside their walled garden.)
The app requires a very specific permission for this, which it asks for on first launch. It's not even just a popup on which you can tap "Ok" - Android will take you to a special screen from where you need to manually switch on the notifications access for it to work.
This problem was supposed to be solved by app stores filtering these apps out. Sadly this does not work 100%. Some apps do this but are too-big-to-ban-from-the-appstore and others point to the first group and scream about selective enforcement. Thank you for providing this extra layer of protection!
A couple years back I was looking for this sort of solution and ended up paying money to buy FilterBox which I've found to be good.
There are certain apps that I would love to be able to uninstall but have to keep for one reason or another, so I really appreciate apps like these which prevent attention-stealing notifications from making it through :)
Having never had a google account or used the "play" store, but having only used android phones(so far) I would try this from fdroid, etc.
I have a workarounds that dissables all notifications except for pm's, the trickiest ones bieng for the varios google (dis)services.
The other main workaround is to use webpage sign ins rather than apps through an oddball browser that breaks anything........hmmmm, too agressive, which luckily comes in another flavor that I have set up for banking, and certain other sign ins.
But what I would realy realy like a cache cleaner that would wipe EVERYTHING , or better yet a detailed list of all running services and cached data AND bieng able to see the network. could be called WTFIGO, or FIGO for short
Wow, I had no idea Android allowed a third party app to take over absolute control of all notifications. I assume you have to allow it somehow? It’s actually very cool that this is possible. Apple would never even consider allowing this.
I will try it to see if I can finally block the marketing notifications of my banks (!!!) app, traderepublic. I don't want to block all the notifications from this app, but it sends everything in one single channel, so it's not possible to only block marketing ones.
The Before Launcher for Android has a notification filter as well, and is a great simple launcher. It doesn't let you create rules, but you can enable/disable each app's notification, choose what kind of notification it gives, and you can enable/disable categories of notifications (call, navigation, event, alarm, progress, system, car_emergency, stopwatch, missed_call, reminder). You swipe right on the launcher and it shows you the pending notifications.
Nice to see something like this... I've gotten to where I simply have most app notifications disabled altogether. Pretty much only phone calls and text messages get through, and my text message notification sound is pretty subtle at that.
If I go a few days without going into a given social media app to see the notifications in the app, so be it. For that matter, I'm relatively selective about the apps I even install in the first place.
Some apps use just one channel and use it to send both really important stuff (like fraud alerts on your credit card) as well as ads so you cannot turn them off even if you wanted to.
Other apps create 4 new channels a week so you cannot turn them off even if you wanted to.
I recently played around with a similar idea, but with the added feature that notifications would be sent together in a single notification from the app at scheduled times, optionally grouped by app
This is really great. I chuckled seeing MyGate. I hate that app. My society uses it and I'd need this exactly for it. I hate that Android doesn't force devs to use the right notification category. Apps need to be penalized for not adhering to that.
yes! I looked into implementing adblock on the iPhone notification tray and it didn't look like it was possible. Glad someone is working on it for android.
Apps shouldn't be allowed to send notifications for Ads! I give any app on my phone one chance to be annoying and then turn them off.
This feels like something where we should be able to use an on device classifier or even LLM to bucket notifications, similar to a spam inbox.
Even better if they can pull any potential coupons out for use later without flavor text from the notification itself.
Does the app has any country wise template rule collections? I would love to have the feature but not willing to write rule 100 rules for 30 apps by my own.
It does have rules for about 25 common apps already built in. I had considered making a feature to 'share' rules with other users of the app, but that would've required Internet access. And as you can see from the comments on this thread, nobody wants an app like this to send data :(
LLM would help with this immensely, if only it was allowed (not sure how though... make the ruleset available as a single text field for export/import, maybe?)
Can you share a screenshot of the notification, and the rule that you created for it at aj@donotnotify.com please?
Also, do note that if it is a persistent notification[1] then the Android OS does not allow it to be dismissed. In such a case, you will see the notification in the blocked history with a warning icon next to it.
AutoNotification app can block persistent notifications if I understand correctly what it is. Hides things like "Wifi Calling" that you can't normally disable, swipe. Doesn't require root. So there might be the way. It became less reliable on latest samsung phones, but works on pixels afaik.
iOS doesn't give developers access to other apps' notifications, AFAIK. I'm not an iOS developer though - maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
There's an API for notification mirroring, but only in the EU. As you can guess this is a "deprivileging Apple Watch" thing. So there's no generic "filter notifications" ability, it's ONLY for sending notifications to a connected non-Apple smartwatch.
I am surprised that nobody seems to have the opposite problem: Modern Android just no longer delivers notifications in realtime but bunches them and delays them to a degree that you can't rely on them anymore for synchronous communication. Whatsapp and Gmail messages often trigger notifications up to 15 minutes after being received for me. Infuriating.
With apps like Signal, installed via apk, without going through Google on a de-Googled phone, I receive notifications in real time. What's the point of having all notifications go through Google, except to save some battery life and data?
Also, can Google read push notifications going through FCM?
I would love to use this, but I don't want to allow a third party app with closed source to read all my notifications. This can read OTP passwords, full messages, etc. so it must be open source for me to consider it.
I would donate/pay for this if it was open source on F-Droid.
Kudos to you for building it. I put off building this exact same application so many times it's not even funny. Too bad I'm too lazy to maintain something like this.
>I would love to use this, but I don't want to allow a third party app with closed source to read all my notifications. This can read OTP passwords, full messages, etc. so it must be open source for me to consider it.
The app lacks the INTERNET permission so it can't really exfiltrate data even if it wanted to.
This is correct, but it is still a slippery slope. At some point the dev ends up adding internet permission (might be for legit reasons too), and lo and behold you are sharing your data. For something as sensitive as notifications, I really can't trust anything but open-source app which is vetted by a few seasoned people and hosted on F-droid.
Related, GrapheneOS has a handy feature to disable network access for individual apps.
Also non-GrapheneOS Android. I'm on CrDroid (Android 16), ans if I go into "Settings -> Apps -> Some App -> Mobile data usage", there's a toggle for "Allow internet access", and a few more to control network access on Wi-Fi, cellular, background, and VPN.
If the permission is added in retrospect wouldn’t you still need to opt in?
fwiw i completely agree that oss is the way to go here
The "Internet" permission on Android is one of the no-approval ones. If it gets added, you won't notice.
I’m interested in what you’re suggesting. Who are those auditors you trust? Does f-droid imply things have been audited?
f-droid implies
* that the application is source-available;
* toolchain used to build the app is FOSS - application does not use Play Services, or proprietary tracking/analytics, or proprietary ad libraries.
* application toolchain doesn't depend on "binary blobs";
Not even passing the sniff test on those easy to meet requirements is suspicious.
Would a safe alternative (albeit annoying to update) be to side load the apk for the purpose of eliminating the possibility of auto updates brought on by an app store?
That's another pet peeve of mine: Why the hell can't we block internet access for apps in (native) Android? Everything else is a permission, but this is not, somehow.
Maybe Google doesn't want users blocking ads from getting loaded.
ADs work via play services so even if you block internet for the app the ADs will continue to work.
The reason many apps stop showing ADs when their internet is blocked is because they need to make an API call to their own servers before running the AD. That is the common behavior but not mandatory
Wait, we can in Android. In my OnePlus 12 in the app settings under "data usage" there are two toggles for "disable mobile data" / "disable wifi"
Not present with a Pixel with Android 16, my effective choices are:
1. App can't use mobile data in background
2. App can use mobile data in background except in Data Saver mode
3. App can use mobile data in background regardless of Data Saver mode
____
For anyone doing comparisons, the literal settings appear under "Mobile Data Usage" as:
* [X] Background Data ("Enable usage of mobile data in the background")
* [ ] Unrestricted mobile data usage ("Allow unrestricted mobile data access when Data Saver is on")
You mean Google-Android.
Wow, thought it was GrapheneOS only, but no.
Confirmed these settings on One+15 on OOS16 (based on Android 16).
Is it also the case for other Android brands?
P.S. I did use it before to turn off ads.
Google's Pixel phones (near stock Android) famously do NOT have the option.
Google is invested into you having WiFi all the time.
Weirdly, my very old Nexus 6P with the WiFi off, could lie untouched for weeks, with almost no battery depletion. Yet if I turn the WiFi on with near stock Android (meaning no messengers, tens of email accounts, etc, to constantly ping _something_), it just eats the battery within 24 hours tops. Perhaps that’s just the module itself, but I remember flashing LineageOS and having better savings. I have no real numbers to support that right now, although I still have the phone lying around somewhere and could test this some day.
Modern Google Android will use neighbouring WiFi networks to guesstimate your location quickly, so it's scanning even when the toggle says "off" unless you disable it. This location can be queried in the background when nearby devices broadcast the equivalent to Apple's "find my" network broadcasts, because Google uses collected reports of beacons+location to roughly locate tags and such. Opting out of all of that stuff should massively improve standby battery time.
I've also noticed the difference between vendor+custom ROM with a Xiaomi device, which I use as a second phone around the house for controlling smart lights and such. The biggest difference there seems to be that I don't have as many apps installed and as many features enabled, because during active use and shortly after, the battery drains just as fast as (actually a bit faster than) when using the original ROM.
Many custom ROMs (at least the LineageOS-based ones) also don't do thing like configure the country code for the WiFi chip and GPS caches. A large part of the 5GHz spectrum simply doesn't exist (by default) on my custom ROM devices so there's just less to scan in the background.
I believe this has been part of LineageOS since before it was called LineageOS. Most custom ROMs have some kind of internet filtering capability.
Some Chinese/Taiwanese brands do it too, but most western brands don't seem to include a firewall.
Xiaomi phones also have it but you can block Wi-Fi only for user (non system) apps. However you can block mobile data access to all apps.
None of the Samsungs I have owned so far had this feature and neither did my last Pixel.
I have an S25 Ultra with the latest version of Android, and these options don't seem to be there at all. I don't have a "data usage" under Permissions for any apps. I do have a Mobile Data section under App Info for any given app, but there's no way to toggle the options you mentioned.
You can on some devices (many Chinese brands, funnily enough) and on custom ROMs.
There are also (open source) firewall apps that will let you block (non-system) apps if you're on a stock ROM like me.
Technically, this is a permission, just not a user-grantable one. Google has moved quite a few permissions from inherent to user-grantable, but most apps don't work without internet (unfortunately) so I doubt they will do it for the internet permission in stock android.
It is a permission that app can get without asking the user
Lacking INTERNET permission today does not guarantee that the app will never have that permission. The internet permission is considered a "normal" permission by android so it will be auto granted without even a notification to the user.
Moreover an app without internet permission can still send data out using "INTENTS" for other apps in Android. This can make an app dangerous even without internet permission.
I was excited about the application and was dissapointed to see that it was closed source. I will absolutely not trust anyone that I cannot sue with this data. Big companies at least follow some standards that are enforced by multiple governments here we know nothing.
It's hard to rule out intentional side channels without access to source.
Do you mean a no-internet app (like this) could write data locally in a way that another internet-enabled app (in cahoots) could locally receive? Like a non-sandboxed storage area? Seems plausible.
Meta literally got caught doing this.
Writing to a local server, and then uploading from the browser to bypass consent mechanisms.
https://wire.com/en/blog/metas-stealth-tracking-another-eu-w...
yes that and internet permission can be added later and pushed with an update. Unless you are checking permissions after every update you will not know.
Is that actually required? I thought that was implicit
It's automatically granted but the app needs to declare it in order to access internet. Because of that it's not enough that the app _currently_ doesn't request internet permissions, because if it ever starts, it would be mostly transparent to a user
Yes. Without the permission all network requests will just fail.
You can silently add the permission in an update though. It's safe if you don't auto-update it I guess.
Not alone,
but it could prepare a tidy little package for something else to grab later.
Fair enough, you only have my word on it (that it doesn't send any data to the Internet). But you do have my word :)
Another person requested that the app be open-sourced as well. I will look into that.
I would greatly appreciate it, if this was open source :) Especially since this will be able to read 2FA codes sent by SMS. (I get that SMS 2FA codes are not perfectly safe to begin with, I personally don't love them either, but they are still used on a bunch of services)
Just makes me sleep a little better.
I'm going to join the list of voices requesting open source here. If you're not planning to charge money for this, there are several benefits starting with increased trust.
Mobile apps are a cesspool of user-hostile behavior, and I have a strong preference for not giving closed source apps access to sensitive data.
> completely free, and there is no advertising or hidden gotchas
I don't understand why not release the source if the app is completely free, what are you trying to protect?
Putting on my CISO hat, if they release the source, someone else could then create an app, but this time maliciously with said exfiltration of information, and publish it on play with paid ad time.
they probably just wanna keep the option to monetize it in the future open
It's something i've also vaguely thought about building myself, because god damn uber, how many times do you need to send me an advert for uber one? just tell me when my car is here.
so congrats to the author of this. I do agree that I'd prefer it open sourced too, it feels a bit risky it having access to all your notifications.
It took me a moment to find, but Alertly claims to do something similar while being open-source. Last commit was made two years ago though.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.example.notificationalerter
https://github.com/lightningcpu/Alertly
What about this? https://f-droid.org/packages/co.adityarajput.notifilter
If you're feeling skeptical and just want to be sure, you can use this NetGuard https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard to block internet access for any app.
Just blocking access to internet for this one app is not enough. It can use intents or a shared local storage with some other app to send the data out.
Great tool. Additionally, some Android forks (ColorOS) allow you to do this without apps, directly in the system settings of the app
The irony
App1 abuses notification permission
App2 keeps App1 in check
App3 to keep App2 from abusing network permission
...
TIL! What a find. Thanks mate!
I might actually try this now.
If NetGuard makes you smile, have a look at ReThink.
Fast/private DNS, firewall, logs, VPN (WireGuard) ready to go.
You're welcome
If you're that paranoid, you might also consider not using F-Droid:
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/obtaining-apps/#f-d...
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/15490-f-droid-or-obtainium
TIL!
IDK if I would consider not blindly trusting an unknown third party to read all my notifications being paranoid, but if it is, then yeah, I guess I am.
I've used F-droid merely due to the open source guarantee, so how fast these apps are patched isn't a deal-breaker for me, but I'll definitely look into Obtanium now.
Thank you!
As a developer, the fact that F-Droid now compiles all your packages for you, using their own keys, is a non-starter for me. It means they are free to modify my code however they want or inject malware etc. (whether by mistake or not), and it's totally outside of my control, but still has my name on it.
I guess we can't win, can we? I worried more about random developers getting compromised since the surface area is much larger, but at the same time one entity compiling all packages makes them a more attractive target.
We've seen the released bundles being different to the source code before too AFAIR, so whether it's a single repository or F-Droid, both can easily screw users up if compromised.
I don't want to be paranoid but the world's not making it easy.
Absolutely! It is a sovereignty software effectively, it could be OSS only, otherwise treated as "soon to turn into bloatware cash-cow to death". There is no other way to gain trust, but staying closed source is a way to confirm distrust. If dev scared about monetization that much, that's a pre-bloatware effectively.
I’m now an iOS user but the problem is actually the same here : apps not respecting communication channels to push ads (mostly to their own app or service). I usually fully block notifications from most apps but for some apps the notifications are really convenient (carpooling, transport or delivery app). Yes I want to know if the train I booked is delayed. No I don’t want to be notified that you are now partnering with another transport company and that you are sharing 5% off coupons to try it… I systematically give a 1 star review explaining the issue and mail the devs if possible. I even think that Apple Store and Play Store ToSs are against this practice but they are not enforcing it sadly…
Worse even because iOS doesn't offer notification groups/channels like Android does (ignoring the fact that market leaders like Uber, DoorDash, etc. eschew them in favor of "General" channels they can pump both delivery/ride info and ads through.)
IMO this needs to be an app guideline enforced by the iOS App Store and Play Store. I remember back in the day, iOS used to be known for having less spammy notifications.
I remember when I first started seeing obvious ads in notifications and assumed Apple would come down hard. I wish I had been right.
If any app abuses the notifications at all I turn them all off, that's the only way to stop it. If the notifications are required for the app's operation, well, then I have to delete the app.
Society has fucked itself over allowing these to exist.
My United Healthcare app told me I had 43 notifications. I just turned it off. There’s literally never a time they need to notify me via a push notification on my phone.
Society has fucked itself over allowing everyone to be dependant on software entirely from two american companies.
20 years ago the idea that I'd have to have an account with an american company so as to be able to interact with so much of my on-another-continent society would be ridiculous!
Now it is the default. It is sad.
Apple doesn’t even follow that guideline (It exists) themselves and is happily using push notifications for ads.
> IMO this needs to be an app guideline enforced by the iOS App Store and Play Store.
Yeah, but... money.
Maybe this matters at the bottom end of the market, but it's mainly the top players I see take this approach to notifications. DoorDash, Uber, and the social media platforms all have incentive to stay on the official app stores.
I expect the bottom end of the market is also dependent on the official app stores to make money. What real alternatives do users have, especially with sideloading on Android now requiring Google bless your APK anyway? (edit: Looks like Google has started to walk this back slightly. Even still. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...)
I chose the hard way and disabled them anyway. If I want to know if a train is delayed, I check. If I wait for a driver, I check. Actually the latter is better as I'm not surprised by the guy arriving but can synchronize well. And frankly, I don't complain.
And every evening or so I sit down on my computer and check WhatsApp notifications on web.whatsapp.com to catch up with what's going on in groups people added me to. I find this quite good for my well-being.
Here is a fun story. Just like you, I too live in a “gated community”, and we also default to MyGate. We have a founders group in there, and the things with MyGate and its irritations would sometimes come up. We all would wink and go about our days. The founder of MyGate is in the group and is one of the neighbors. We sometimes teased that we would just camp out outside his home, asking him to fix these excessive notification issues and bugs, and to add/edit features. ;-)
Another founder friend lives in a different mid-sized community and was using MyGate. He got pissed not just at the ads but at the massive data gathering—contacts, camera, flashlight, and everything. He ended up creating https://dobermanapp.com
That doberman site feels kind of sketchy. It doesn’t say anything about the hardware required or how someone would integrate this. Also it says it’s free but then one of the five top level pages is the SLA which says it doesn’t apply to free plans. I really don’t understand if this is just a random landing page that someone created to gauge interest or what.
If I were in that situation and had no other choice I'd just RE the app and figure out what API calls it makes, and reimplement it myself.
Ah we live in the same ‘gated’ community and probably are neighbours then ?
My solution to this problem was to have my phone permanently on silent. The logic being - there was nothing so urgent 25 years ago that couldn't be solved by an asynchronous answering machine message checked once a day; why do I need moment to moment updates now.
Nowadays I'd probably use a tool like yours. My partner is going through legitimate withdrawal symptoms after two years of short-form content addiction. Turning off all notifications was one of the first things I did for them.
I'm occasionally keeping my data turned off and am telling everyone "if urgent call me".
(3rd world) problem: most people think calling is pressing the phone button inside Whatsapp.
At least on iOS, internet call is treated basically the same as cellular, showing a splash caller screen and ringing if not on silent. This means that it's trivial to setup phone in such a way that no notification gets through but calls do, even with sound.
The point being made above is that if data is turned off, you can no longer receive calls made over WhatsApp.
Yup.
My intention is to intentionally block whatsapp calls.
And to use the oldskool telephone for emergencies.
I could have communicated it more clearly.
Yes, I was not clear too - what I mean is that my family won't be able to get in touch.
This is also true on Android.
The same in Switzerland and it's not 3rd world
I turn off notifications for every app except calls and messages; it's fine because almost no-one ever calls or texts anymore (Whatsapp messages can wait until I look at them).
Turning the phone on silent isn't really a solution since it still pollutes the screen (and the history) with useless notifications.
Deny all notifications when installing a new app. Enable them only if you absolutely need them.
Gate access isn't absolutely need, your visitors can call you. Or if you order food you can check status on the food app.
Even when checking once a day, it's still worse with spam notifications. It's like getting 20 spam phone calls on your answering machine between the real ones.
Another option is to avoid those kinds of apps. I get 0 notifications I would consider spam.
There are e.g. banking apps doing that.
Consider using another bank. Maybe there's a higher tolerance for that kind of bullshit in the US but I've never seen a single notification from my bank. If it sent me spam I would assume they got hacked.
The problem is that the energy it takes to switch banks is way too high given the inconvenience, and they know. This applies to many small annoyances that are not big enough to vote with your feet, so companies abuse these things. Classic dark patterns.
It might be worth a few days work. It's a shame so many people choose convenience over principle, that's what the bad actors rely on. Stop participating. If changing banks is too much effort maybe doing the banking from the browser instead of their app is a compromise.
Android (at least on Pixel) recently added a notification spam detection system, under the name "Notification Organizer". Unfortunately they don't let you block the spam, only deprioritize it. So it won't make noise, but you still have to manually dismiss it from the notification drawer. The PMs almost had the right idea...
Luckily on Android you can use Tasker and the AutoNotification plugin to block specific notifications that bug you. And I guess this app is now another alternative. I don't know how iOS people live without the ability to do this. My wife, who uses iOS, is constantly complaining about annoying notifications and there's nothing I can do to help her.
> I don't know how iOS people live without the ability to do this. My wife, who uses iOS, is constantly complaining about annoying notifications and there's nothing I can do to help her.
I’m on iOS and as soon as an app sends me a spammy notification I just go into settings and turn off notifications for it. Though honestly most of the time I just don’t allow notifications in the first place.
The mygate app you have to use made me curious.
They proudly advertise:
"Capture the attention of India’s most sought-after communities"
https://mygate.com/ad-platform/"
Faszinating, literal vendor lock in. I know that moving places suck (I am just doing it), but this would be unacceptable for me.
They also advertise:
> 47% DAU:MAU
> Build strong brand recall with high frequency on our daily-use app
Spamming notifications is how they are getting these high frequency users.
Presumably also because people need to get into their apartment building most days?
Congratulations on the launch OP.
I'm currently using BuzzKill[1] for managing notifications on android. It's so good (and beautiful) that even though I use iPhone as primary device, I receive most of my notifications on android and relay it to my iPhone using a Termux script[2] after putting it through BuzzKill.
I understand that your USP is logging which BuzzKill also provides with numerous actions and Tasker integration on top of it.
It's great that DoNotNotify is free, but if any android app deserves to be paid for its BuzzKill. Perhaps being open-source could be a better differentiator for DoNotNotify?
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....
[2] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/apple-watch-with-android/t...
This looks nice! I had no idea you could actually control notifications as an app.
One thing I've always wanted is the ability to "group" notifications.
Apps like WhatsApp can be really bad for pinging lots of times within a minute for individual messages. I really don't need my phone to buzz more than once every five minutes, and wish I could set rules like "don't buzz for x minutes after a notification".
Since Android 15, Google Pixel phones have a "notification cooldown" that sort of fixes this. Hopefully it makes it's way to all Android phones at some point.
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-15-notification-coo...
That's a great suggestion. Perhaps in the next version!
That would be nice.. or at least, don't buzz unless it's after I've activated and interacted with the phone/app in question.
You mean your whatsapp isn't muted, and the mute muted again just in case?
The play store should reject apps that use audible notifications other than those controlled by Android platform notification permissions. Making a user dig through an obscure multiple layer settings jungle to track down and kill annoying notifications is a dark pattern and deserves de-platforming. I'm looking at you, Facebook.
The Facebook app is malware. Remove it from your system and use better ways to communicate with people, e.g. Signal.
One can also use the Facebook website. It's almost usable on the Firefox mobile to the extent that you can check the news feed or notifications and reply to a comment, but anything more involved is very annoying (so you end up not doing this and long-term using Facebook less, which is a good thing)
You long press the notification and block the app. Pretty straightforward.
Step 1: Within the Facebook App (Most Important) Open the Facebook app. Tap the Menu icon (three lines/your profile picture) > Settings & Privacy > Settings. Scroll to Notifications (under "Notifications and Permissions"). Tap Notifications, then select Push notifications. Toggle off all notification types (Comments, Likes, Tags, Birthdays, etc.) and turn off the main Push Notifications toggle. Check Email & SMS Notifications and Mobile Push Notifications to disable any lingering alerts there. Step 2: In Android System Settings Open your phone's Settings app. Go to Apps, Apps & notifications, or Applications (depending on your Android version). Find and tap on Facebook. Tap Notifications. Turn the main All Facebook notifications toggle OFF (it should turn gray). Step 3: For Browser-Based Notifications (Pop-ups) Open your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) on your phone. Go to Settings > Site Settings > Notifications. Find Facebook in the allowed list and block it, or remove it entirely. If They Still Persist (Advanced) Check for app updates: Sometimes updates reset settings; re-apply Step 1 and 2. Use a third-party blocker: Apps like Freedom or similar tools can block the app or its notifications at a system level. Restrict Background Data: In Android Settings > Apps > Facebook > Mobile data & Wi-Fi, you can restrict background data usage.
I just disable notifications for Facebook on my phone altogether. I'll proactively check every few days.
I use an app called BuzzKill on Android for achieving this and many more things. I usually keep my notification bar at an absolute minimum when it comes to the number of notifications, but this app allows me to set rules for notifications based on their content. By default, all apps that I use have notifications turned off by default and they also get into deep sleep mode. So I'm sure they are not even running after a while. Only apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Signal can receive notifications. And by using the rules on Buzzkill, I am also able to automatically discard marketing notifications and useless notifications from these apps as well.
For an app like Google Maps though, I completely turned off notifications because there's really no need for me to have them. If you go into the notification settings through the Google Maps app, it's a big shitshow because it has some 40 categories that you will have to manually manage and I'm sure this was designed for the very purpose of letting users become tired after looking at them and then leave things as is.
Similarly, I do think the vast majority of the apps that we use don't need to send us any notifications at all. Thanks to Android for adding this feature to block all notifications from apps some four years ago, I guess.
I second Buzzkill. My comment was going to be "What does this do that Buzzkill doesn't?"
Honestly I did not know about Buzzkill. I suppose the big differentiator is that DoNotNotify is absolutely free.
Well yeah, it's great that you made a free app that can do similar things, I was just pointing at an alternative that folks can try.
Glad there are other options! Before Buzzkill I used another app that stopped being maintained and then stopped working on newer Androids. I had to deal with notifications for a year before I found Buzzkill.
I have an Android phone and it's constantly set to 'Do not disturb'. I only have a couple of people that are exempt (you can do that in the settings). Because of this I am not too fussed about even occasional extra notification, because I deal with all of them when I have time.
Personally it just grates me when my notifications stack up (even if I wasn't disturbed when the notifications came in). My philosophy is - I should be able to control what I see, hence this app.
However bad you think you have it with phone notifications - it is ten-times worse for the elderly.
The enormity of the garbage spam they get from phone app notifications and text messages is breathtaking.
This is great! Looking forward to using it. Especially the rule-based filtering function, as my biggest sore spot with notifications are the few handful of highly functional apps that stuff marketing notifications into notification groups that are not marked for marketing.
I'm kinda surprised to hear people having this problem on Android. I've found Android's notification management to be superb and, as others have said, with a one strike rule, this has been a non-issue for me.
> I live in a gated society that uses an app called MyGate to allow visitors, and the app intentionally pushes ads through the same channels since you cannot block them.
This strikes me as against the Play Store policy, potentially Notifications VX-S1, "Notifications are not used for cross-promotion or advertising another product, as this is strictly prohibited by the Play Store."
Worth a try to report them.
Facebook Messenger constantly tells you shit like "Hey, it's been 1 minute since someone messaged you, you better check it out!", Uber Eats is constantly telling me about meal deals even directly after I just ordered food on Uber Eats, and now it's giving me Uber ads implying the only thing stopping me from going out is that I haven't ordered an Uber, despite my history of only using it once a year when out of country and that I JUST ORDERED FOOD TO MY HOUSE!
You can't turn these off without never getting FB Messenger messages or notices of if your food has arrived because no one knows how to ring a fucking doorbell anymore even if the note specifically says to :/
I only have "Your Order" notifications allowed for Uber Eats which will only send notifications about my specific order and I think reminding me to tip if I didn't already? That seems to be a subcategory at least.
Anecdotally, I've never received anything other than those notifications.
I only use Facebook Messenger for Facebook Marketplace, so I don't have much interaction with it, but I see "Reminders" as a category of notification, try turning that off.
My approach to this problem is to not install apps that could be websites, and to remove apps that send me useless notifications. Some apps use notification categories, which gives the user some control.
A feature that would make this app useful to me is a notification digest as a third option in addition to allow and deny. The digest would hold certain notifications and show them to me all at once on a schedule I set.
For a concrete use case, I have low-priority group chats and high-priority direct messages in the same messaging app. I want the direct messages to interrupt me at any time, and I want to be told I have unread group chats a couple times a day without having to poll them manually.
The wild part about all these notification-firewall concepts is that we keep re‑creating the same tool in closed source. Why not ship it as open source, charge for the hosted rulesets or ML models, and let people audit the code they’re literally piping every OTP and DM through? “Trust us, we don’t phone home” isn’t a strategy anymore when GrapheneOS, NetGuard, and even Pixel’s Data Saver already cover 80% of the use cases. The only reason I can see for keeping it closed is that the real business model is eventually selling the telemetry back to the very advertisers it claims to block. Am I missing an actually compelling reason not to open it up?
Imho there are 3 separate classes of notifications
1) Ads - these should not exist, really, or at worst should be flagged in the app store as an anti-feature isolateable from other notifications.
2) "Recommendations" - that is, stuff you didn't subscribe to but are things the app offers that they "think you would like". These are defensible but should never ever be mixed with...
3) Stuff I actually explicitly subscribed to.
Breaking these rules should be rejection from the app store. Especially now that Google is legally required to allow 3rd-party app stores, they have much greater grounds to properly curate the Play Store. Let the filth live on 3rd-party stores.
Love the on-device approach. The fact that it never phones home is a huge differentiator — most "utility" apps these days are just data collection with a feature attached. The regex filtering is clever. Have you thought about adding ML-based classification for notifications that are harder to catch with patterns? Something lightweight like a small on-device model could detect promotional vs. transactional notifications without needing manual rules. Also curious about battery impact — how often does it process the notification stream?
> Have you thought about adding ML-based classification for notifications that are harder to catch with patterns?
Honestly that's a little out my league. The idea did occur to me, but I'm discouraged by the amount of compute required for most ML.
> Also curious about battery impact — how often does it process the notification stream?
The OS sends any new notification to the app (it is a push based approach) automatically. On my own phone, this app currently shows at the bottom of the list in battery usage (<1%).
Looks interesting. Good work. Do you have plans to open source the code?
there is a very similar app with much bigger history and (obviously) greater reputation: BuzzKill. [0] it's paid, available on Google Play, has tons of features and then some.
also, I bet that Android platform forbids you from requesting the internet permission if you use some "dangerous" permissions, e.g. reading notifications.
EDIT: added link.
[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....
I've been happy with the solution of switching off notifications from apps that interrupt me with promotions - one strike and they're out.
The remaining notifications are _still_ frequent enough that no single app can expect to get my attention with a single buzz.
It's not like apps don't upsell to when I _open_ them and have to swipe away ads before I can use them. So why give them another channel?
25-years ago me is going to roll his eyes so hard, but you know where I don't mind slightly-targeted ads? My email & my doormat. Send me a catalogue, I love a catalogue.
> I've been happy with the solution of switching off notifications from apps that interrupt me with promotions - one strike and they're out.
I have exactly the same policy. But in my case I am forced to keep notifications enabled from apps like MyGate (since nobody would be able to visit me without it) and I have no say in the matter - my gated society uses it and my only way out is to pay for the app itself.
Ah OK - personally that would move it from an "annoying app with adverts" charge (that I'd resist) to a "leasehold bullshit" charge (that I'd pay).
I am stuck similarly with the ClassDojo app that my kids school uses to communicate with parents. The notifications are just "You have a new notification!" which leads to a slow app load, an upsell splash, before finally having to scroll to find the important message from a teacher. In this case though, paying would not make it any less slow to use.
I just check once a week instead, and the parents WhatsApp group fills in the gaps for me.
I also do my best to stick to a "one strike and they're out" personal policy.
But I also have apps that push marketing through notifications _and_ are urgent on a reoccurring basis (usually delivery or rideshare apps). For those, I'd love if there was a system notification setting (per app) for "allow notifications from this all for the next X hours" _and_ a simple UX to make that happen.
I guess I'm surprised that Android would allow one app to read/manage/block notifications from all other apps. I mean, I'm happy to have that kind of control over my phone, but it also seems like it could be viewed as a giant security hole? (Which would be a bit ironic given that Google is actively stamping out the ability for users to install apps that come from outside their walled garden.)
The app requires a very specific permission for this, which it asks for on first launch. It's not even just a popup on which you can tap "Ok" - Android will take you to a special screen from where you need to manually switch on the notifications access for it to work.
This problem was supposed to be solved by app stores filtering these apps out. Sadly this does not work 100%. Some apps do this but are too-big-to-ban-from-the-appstore and others point to the first group and scream about selective enforcement. Thank you for providing this extra layer of protection!
A couple years back I was looking for this sort of solution and ended up paying money to buy FilterBox which I've found to be good.
There are certain apps that I would love to be able to uninstall but have to keep for one reason or another, so I really appreciate apps like these which prevent attention-stealing notifications from making it through :)
Having never had a google account or used the "play" store, but having only used android phones(so far) I would try this from fdroid, etc. I have a workarounds that dissables all notifications except for pm's, the trickiest ones bieng for the varios google (dis)services. The other main workaround is to use webpage sign ins rather than apps through an oddball browser that breaks anything........hmmmm, too agressive, which luckily comes in another flavor that I have set up for banking, and certain other sign ins. But what I would realy realy like a cache cleaner that would wipe EVERYTHING , or better yet a detailed list of all running services and cached data AND bieng able to see the network. could be called WTFIGO, or FIGO for short
Wow, I had no idea Android allowed a third party app to take over absolute control of all notifications. I assume you have to allow it somehow? It’s actually very cool that this is possible. Apple would never even consider allowing this.
Yes, it requires a special permission, which the app asks for when it is first launched. Thankfully no other permissions are required.
I will try it to see if I can finally block the marketing notifications of my banks (!!!) app, traderepublic. I don't want to block all the notifications from this app, but it sends everything in one single channel, so it's not possible to only block marketing ones.
The Before Launcher for Android has a notification filter as well, and is a great simple launcher. It doesn't let you create rules, but you can enable/disable each app's notification, choose what kind of notification it gives, and you can enable/disable categories of notifications (call, navigation, event, alarm, progress, system, car_emergency, stopwatch, missed_call, reminder). You swipe right on the launcher and it shows you the pending notifications.
Nice to see something like this... I've gotten to where I simply have most app notifications disabled altogether. Pretty much only phone calls and text messages get through, and my text message notification sound is pretty subtle at that.
If I go a few days without going into a given social media app to see the notifications in the app, so be it. For that matter, I'm relatively selective about the apps I even install in the first place.
This has been a huge pet peeve of mine. I generally leave bad Play store reviews with a note, because that's usually the only thing they care about.
I used to use Spren app. It later disappeared. I still use an old apk that I preserved. Works great! This app looks great. Will try!
As others pointed out: This >needs< to be open source, no way i touch another abandonware/ adware android project.
A little dramatic? You can stop using it if it becomes something you don't like.
Notification "channels" -- what a wild west
Some apps use just one channel and use it to send both really important stuff (like fraud alerts on your credit card) as well as ads so you cannot turn them off even if you wanted to.
Other apps create 4 new channels a week so you cannot turn them off even if you wanted to.
I recently played around with a similar idea, but with the added feature that notifications would be sent together in a single notification from the app at scheduled times, optionally grouped by app
This is really great. I chuckled seeing MyGate. I hate that app. My society uses it and I'd need this exactly for it. I hate that Android doesn't force devs to use the right notification category. Apps need to be penalized for not adhering to that.
If you really need an app, e.g. for work, put in a separate user profile (sorry iOS users, your phone is gimped).
I agree, this is an excellent idea and I am excited to try it.
You're welcome, friend!
yes! I looked into implementing adblock on the iPhone notification tray and it didn't look like it was possible. Glad someone is working on it for android.
Apps shouldn't be allowed to send notifications for Ads! I give any app on my phone one chance to be annoying and then turn them off.
This feels like something where we should be able to use an on device classifier or even LLM to bucket notifications, similar to a spam inbox.
Even better if they can pull any potential coupons out for use later without flavor text from the notification itself.
Does the app has any country wise template rule collections? I would love to have the feature but not willing to write rule 100 rules for 30 apps by my own.
It does have rules for about 25 common apps already built in. I had considered making a feature to 'share' rules with other users of the app, but that would've required Internet access. And as you can see from the comments on this thread, nobody wants an app like this to send data :(
LLM would help with this immensely, if only it was allowed (not sure how though... make the ruleset available as a single text field for export/import, maybe?)
Tried with Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 to hide the VPN and DNS notification from Android System notification service but it does not work.
Can you share a screenshot of the notification, and the rule that you created for it at aj@donotnotify.com please?
Also, do note that if it is a persistent notification[1] then the Android OS does not allow it to be dismissed. In such a case, you will see the notification in the blocked history with a warning icon next to it.
[1] https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/notifications...
AutoNotification app can block persistent notifications if I understand correctly what it is. Hides things like "Wifi Calling" that you can't normally disable, swipe. Doesn't require root. So there might be the way. It became less reliable on latest samsung phones, but works on pixels afaik.
Thanks for the heads up! Will take a look at it.
This desperately needs export/import functionality.
Is there anything like this for iOS? Or is something like this impossible for a 3rd party to do on iOS?
iOS doesn't give developers access to other apps' notifications, AFAIK. I'm not an iOS developer though - maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
There's an API for notification mirroring, but only in the EU. As you can guess this is a "deprivileging Apple Watch" thing. So there's no generic "filter notifications" ability, it's ONLY for sending notifications to a connected non-Apple smartwatch.
For samsung users I think good lock can do something similar.
ad block for android notifications (maybe for ios notifications too?)
I am surprised that nobody seems to have the opposite problem: Modern Android just no longer delivers notifications in realtime but bunches them and delays them to a degree that you can't rely on them anymore for synchronous communication. Whatsapp and Gmail messages often trigger notifications up to 15 minutes after being received for me. Infuriating.
With apps like Signal, installed via apk, without going through Google on a de-Googled phone, I receive notifications in real time. What's the point of having all notifications go through Google, except to save some battery life and data?
Also, can Google read push notifications going through FCM?
when will it be available through fdroid?
this isn't a native feature?
It would be neat to be able to do LLM filtered notifications. Perhaps with a local LLM for users that prefer.
I hope that Apple does a better job of this too! I don't want Uber's ad notifications, but I do want their notifications about my vehicle status.