This open-source app fixed my notification chaos when Android couldn’t

When it comes to using my phone daily, a few things are certain. I will spend far too much time playing Pokémon Go. I will misplace it and have to wander around my house to find it. And I will look at my notifications and be overwhelmed by just how many pings there are on the screen.

But over the past few weeks, that notification clutter has steadily decreased. And it’s all thanks to an app called DoNotNotify.

When I used to complain about all the notifications I received, people suggested that I use notification channels. Notification channels are a buried Android feature that lets you manage notifications from specific apps by separating them into different types. It’s compulsory for developers to include notification channels for their apps on newer versions of Android. However, not all developers engage with the feature in good faith.

In an app with well-implemented channels, it might allow you to separately enable and disable core notifications and promotions. Uber Eats allows you to do this. I’ve disabled notifications for discounts and events, but enabled notifications for deliveries, order feedback, and tipping.

However, many apps have extremely vague channels that make it difficult to disable specific types of notifications. Meanwhile, others may only have one channel. For example, Temu has channels for Beep Reminder, Critical Reminder, Default, General, Important, Reminders, and Sound Notification. I have no idea what the difference is between a default and a general notification, or what in the world a “beep reminder” is. Meanwhile, Pokémon Go only has two notification channels: Miscellaneous and Pokémon Go.

Both apps would consistently light up my phone throughout the day. Pokémon Go sent me notifications about in-game events, gifts from friends, raid invitations, and egg hatches. I want reminders about egg hatches and in-game events, but gifts from friends are unimportant. The existing notification channels don’t allow me to separate them.

There’s always the option to disable notifications for an app completely. I’ve done this with quite a few apps. However, there are cases where you still want to receive important notifications for an app, while ignoring the ones that aren’t. And that’s where DoNotNotify comes in.

I came across DoNotNotify when its developer contacted me to check it out because of my writing on privacy-focused apps. It turned out to be exactly the kind of app I was looking for, because I was drowning in all the notifications on my phone.

The app is easy to set up, as it guides you through a wizard to enable the permissions it needs. Since it’s fully offline and no data is shared with the developer or third parties, you don’t have to sign up for an account. Rather, you need to enable notification access and allow the app to bypass battery optimization. The setup wizard explains what each permission does.

After you enable permissions, you’re greeted with three tabs: History, Rules, and Blocked. The app automatically imports existing rules it detects on your device. The History tab shows you notifications you’ve received, while Rules shows you the rules you’ve set up, along with how many notifications have met the criteria you’ve set out. Finally, the Blocked tab shows you which notifications the app filtered out.

To set up a rule, select a notification from your history, then select Create Rule. When creating a rule, you can choose whether it’s on the Denylist (blocked notifications), the Allowlist (allowed notifications), or the Stack (notifications the app stacks). You can also edit the Title Filter and Text Filter to make the rule more general or switch it to a Regex format. Then, you select Save Rule.

The Rules tab is handy for checking whether a specific rule, especially one on an allowlist, is working. For example, I created a rule that received no hits over two days, even though I knew the app sent them at least a few times a day. I then realized I had accidentally mistyped the title filter. Meanwhile, the Blocked tab mostly serves as a way to check whether you’ve missed anything important or to confirm that filters are working.

I experimented with DoNotNotify over a few weeks to figure out exactly which notifications I wanted to block. I knew that incessant Temu notifications were a target, but I also wanted to filter out the other clutter that appeared on my notification panel every day. I did this by reviewing my history daily and selecting the notifications I wanted to block.

I found that using a general text filter worked best, since apps often change titles and notification content even when the topic is the same. For Temu, I filtered out anything related to gifts. For Pokémon Go, I also decided to filter out gift notifications from friends. I discovered a few other apps that were contributing to the clutter, including Asana and Truecaller (which kept trying to get me to sign up for the premium plan). Even my beloved Migraine Buddy sent notifications asking me how my day was.

DoNotNotify helped me systematically block these notifications. In the days following the change, I could immediately feel the results. Temu proved to be persistent, though, so I decided to try out the allowlist approach instead. This blocked all notifications except those containing certain terms. In my case, it was credit offers. Everything else, I wasn’t interested in. When I eventually place an order on the app, I’ll also allow notifications for shipping updates.

Even apps I hadn’t initially identified as annoying found their way onto my blocklist. For example, Discord’s UI can make it difficult to unfollow certain bots and channels in the app. So I just decided to block notifications containing the specific bot’s name, and they cleared up immediately.

There was a bit of trial and error, and it did take some time to get all my filters working. But the weight of all those spammy pings has lifted. I do wish DoNotNotify made it easier to create rules from scratch, but overall, I enjoyed using it to get my notifications under control. It’s a useful tool for Android power users; however, I hope that pre-built rules (which weren’t available when I tried the app) will make it easier for newbies to set up their own filters.

If your notifications have gotten out of control, and notification channels just aren’t cutting it, I recommend trying out DoNotNotify. There are plenty of apps that promise to handle notifications, but I appreciate DoNotNotify’s open-source, privacy-focused approach.