How to Disable Spam Notifications on Android

Dec. 10, 2020

Advertisements serve as a way for companies to boost user engagement and promote their apps and services on Android. While advertisements are acceptable to a point, some apps exploit the nature of the operating system to send spam notifications and pop-up ads. We have already explained how you canblock pop-up ads on Android, and in this article, you’ll learn how to block spam notifications on your Android phone.

Block Spam Notifications on Android

Spam notifications primarily originate from two sources – first-party/third-party apps and web browsers. Today, we will be detailing how to block unwanted notifications from both of these categories.

1. Whenever you spot a notification that you don’t really find useful,long-press it and choose ‘Turn off notifications’. You will either find a direct button to stop notifications (as seen below) or an App Info button that redirects you to the app’s settings page based on your phone’s Android version.

2. If you successfully manage to disable the notification, you’ll see a prompt that reads ‘You won’t see these notifications anymore’. In case you change your mind or accidentally disabled an important notification, you can tap on the Undo button to restore it.

3. If you’re planning to disable notifications for multiple apps, head toSettings -> Apps and Notifications(path might slightly differ based on OEM) on your phone. Here, you can see the apps that are sending you notifications and choose to disable them.

4. The procedure to disable spam notifications from websites is similar to the one for other apps. When you see a spam notification from your browser, long-press and disable it.

5. Alternatively, you canvisit Site Settings from the browser’sSettings -> Site settings -> Notificationsto individually manage notifications. You have the option to entirely block browser notifications or require websites to seek your permission before sending notifications.

To help users efficiently manage notifications, Android implementedNotification Channels, starting with Android Oreo. With Notification channels, you get categories to finetune the type of notifications you receive. For instance, if you don’t want promotions from a food delivery app, you can choose to block that specific channel while receiving important delivery alerts.

While Android requires modern apps to implement Notifications Channels, some apps includingfirst-party ones like Google Pay don’t support notification channelsyet, which is unfortunate and disappointing. As a result, if the spammy app pushes all notifications (important notifications and promotions) through the same channel, you’ll have to uninstall the app, entirely disable notifications including important ones, or tolerate such notifications.

So, that was our quick guide to help you disable annoying push notifications on your phone. If you found this helpful, let us know the app that spammed you the most in the comments. While you’re at it, I would highly recommend you to check out our article onremoving bloatware from your phonefor a better overall user experience.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.