Samsung and OnePlus are ruining Android notification history

Jorge December 3, 2023

0 95 3 minutes read

I feel we’ve all been right here.

You’re diving into an enormous record of notifications that arrived in a single day or whilst you have been away out of your telephone and, whereas doing so, a brand new notification arrived resulting in you unintentionally swiping it, or many others away accidentally. It’s a irritating scenario, however one which Android solved years in the past with notification history.

Though, if you happen to’re on a Samsung or OnePlus telephone, you won’t notice that.

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Android is a fairly mature working system, so it’s not all that usually that large new options arrive. But again in 2020, Google added notification history to Android as a really welcome and virtually game-changing new possibility. Suddenly, customers might entry the notifications they’d swiped away. It’s a very, actually helpful possibility, however one which not practically sufficient customers truly find out about.

Generally talking, the characteristic is disabled by default as a method of privateness. You have to decide on to show it on, however doing so is slightly easy and straightforward to search out, not less than on a Pixel. In the Settings menu on Google’s taste of Android, there’s a devoted part for notification settings which, on the high degree, immediately mentions that the history possibility exists. From there, you simply go in and flip it on. When in use, the characteristic will gather your notifications for a restricted time – normally round a day – and group them by app and order obtained. You may also use this identical web page to see notifications which were snoozed.

Once notification history is turned on on a Pixel, you’ll have a useful little shortcut within the notification shade to entry history. This seems any time you have got any notifications, and it’s very fast and straightforward to entry, and simply makes the characteristic significantly extra helpful.

But that’s not the case on a few of the hottest Android gadgets in the marketplace.

Both Samsung and OnePlus, three years into notification history being out there, proceed to needlessly bury this characteristic from view.

On OxygenOS 13, the model presently out there to the OnePlus Open, notification history is discovered below Settings > Notification & standing bar > More settings > Notification history. It’s buried three ranges deep and there’s no point out that it exists on any of the prior pages.

*The solely technique to entry notfication history on OnePlus*

On One UI 6, Samsung’s tackle Android 14, the scenario is just about an identical. You’ll discover notification history below Settings > Notifications > Advanced settings > Notification history. I’m unsure what a couple of helpful characteristic like notification history could be thought-about “advanced,” however that’s the place we are.

*The solely technique to entry notfication history on Samsung*

But the actual kicker right here is that, in contrast to a Pixel, Samsung and OnePlus have eliminated the useful little shortcut for accessing history. That means, even if you happen to discovered and turned on the characteristic, it’s important to undergo these layers of settings each single time you wish to use it.

Madness, particularly for a characteristic that’s truly helpful.

I’m unsure what would change the minds of Samsung and OnePlus right here, in addition to iOS adopting one thing related. As it stands right now, iOS doesn’t provide notification history, as least not in the identical capability. Apple says you may view outdated notifications by swiping up in Notification Center, however that doesn’t apply if you happen to’ve cleared notifications out, however we’ll depart a deeper dialogue about iOS notifications for one more e-newsletter.

For now, I’d simply plead with Samsung and OnePlus to cease burying notification history. It’s helpful and one thing that’s, for now, an truly distinctive characteristic of Android.

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