Tool
Android notification settings checker
Notifications arrive late or never, and it is rarely because the app is broken. Usually three or four settings are in the way, they live on different screens, and every manufacturer names them differently. Pick your phone and Android version, and what remains is the list of things you specifically need to check.
Settings paths checked against manufacturers’ help pages onPaths checked Author: Roman PorfirievskyHow we check
Not right? Change the choice above and the list rebuilds.
Where to look
Settings → Apps → your app → Notifications. The toggle at the top must be on.
Settings → Apps → your app → Notifications.
Settings → Apps → Manage apps → your app → Notifications.
A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. Why this gets in the way
Since Android 13 an app has to ask for this separately on first launch. Declining switches off every notification the app has, reminders included, and the dialog never appears again: the only way back is by hand.
Glossary: Notification permission
Where to look
Settings → Apps → Special app access → Alarms and reminders. Or Settings → Apps → your app → the advanced section.
Settings → Apps → Manage apps → your app → Other permissions → Alarms and reminders.
Settings → Apps → Special app access → Alarms and reminders.
A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. Why this gets in the way
Without this permission the system is free to move a reminder: inexact alarms get batched, and the phone wakes once for all of them, sometimes a minute later, sometimes fifteen. Since Android 14 it is no longer granted automatically even to apps that declare it at install time.
Glossary: Exact alarms
Where to look
Settings → Apps → your app → Battery → Unrestricted.
Settings → Apps → Manage apps → your app → Battery saver → No restrictions.
Search the settings for battery optimisation, find your app and set it to not be optimised. In the MagicOS 10 guide that name belongs to a different screen with an OPTIMIZE button; if the search lands there, it is not the right place.
Settings → Battery → App battery management → your app → turn on Allow background activity, Allow foreground activity and Allow auto launch.
Settings → Battery → Battery optimisation → All apps → your app → Don’t optimise. If there is no such screen, open the app’s own battery page and allow background activity, as on OPPO.
Settings → Battery → High background power consumption → turn it on for your app. On newer versions the item is called "Background power consumption management": pick "Don't restrict background power usage" for the app, or "Unlimited" on iQOO.
Settings → App management → App list → your app → Battery → allow running in the background. On the same app screen, turn off stopping the app when idle.
A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. Why this gets in the way
Doze puts the phone to sleep once it lies still with the screen off, and standby buckets since Android 9 cut background work for apps you rarely open. An exemption lifts both.
Glossary: Battery optimisation
Where to look
Settings → Apps → Permissions → Autostart.
Settings → Apps → Permissions → Background autostart (plain Autostart on MIUI). The same switch also lives inside the Security app.
Settings → Battery → App launch (the path in help for Android 9-12) → your app → turn off Manage automatically and turn on all three: Auto-launch, Secondary launch, Run in background. Honor’s current help uses Optimizer → % remaining → App launch. The settings search finds the screen fastest: type "App launch".
Settings → App management → your app → Allow auto startup. On realme and newer firmware the switch sits on the app’s battery screen, next to background activity.
App settings → Battery → allow auto launch. On some firmware it is a separate item in the app’s settings; the settings search finds it fastest.
On older versions: Settings → More settings → Applications → Autostart. On Funtouch OS 12 and newer: Settings → Apps & notifications → Special app access → Autostart. If neither exists, search the settings for "autostart".
Phone Master → Accelerate → Auto-start management → turn on your app. While in Phone Master, open the menu at the top left → Settings → Protected apps and add it there too.
A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. Why this gets in the way
The skin refuses to let the app start after a reboot or after it has been cleared from memory. At that point there is nobody to show the reminder: the app is not running and never learns that the time has come.
Glossary: Autostart
Where to look
Settings → Battery → Background usage limits on One UI 7 and later; on older firmware it is Settings → Battery and device care → Battery → Background usage limits. Make sure the app is in neither Sleeping apps nor Deep sleeping apps, and add it to Never auto sleeping apps.
A sketch of the screen. Labels and row order on your phone may differ. Why this gets in the way
Samsung keeps two lists, sleeping and deep sleeping apps. A deep sleeping app does not run in the background at all and shows no notifications, and it can land there automatically simply because you have not opened it for a few days.
Glossary: Sleeping apps
Where to look
Open the recent apps list, pull the card down or press and hold it, then tap the padlock.
Open the recent apps list and lock the card. Depending on the firmware the padlock is in the card’s menu or appears when you pull the card down.
Open recents, press and hold the app’s card, then tap the padlock in its corner.
Open the recent apps list and swipe the app’s card down to lock it, as vivo’s English help describes. The older Russian help does the same through a Control Centre whitelist: drag the app icon down and tap the padlock.
Open the recent apps list, tap the small triangle next to the app name above its card and choose to lock it.
Why this gets in the way
On Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, realme, Tecno and Infinix, clearing the recents list unloads the app entirely, along with everything it had scheduled. A locked card survives that, which is why vivo’s and realme’s own help pages recommend it.
Glossary: Lock in recents
Where to look
Settings → Apps → your app → Notifications → the reminders channel. Set it to urgent, or turn on pop-ups together with sound.
Why this gets in the way
A medium-importance channel arrives silently: the notification is in the shade, the sound is not. An app cannot raise its own importance, only you can, so if you once turned it down this is the only place to put it back.
Glossary: Notification channels
Where to look
Settings → Notifications → Do Not Disturb → Exceptions. Permission to override the mode is granted to a specific channel, not to the whole app.
Why this gets in the way
It does not cancel the notification, it mutes it. If a night schedule runs into your morning, the reminder arrives silently, and from the outside that looks exactly like a reminder that never came.
Glossary: Do Not Disturb
Where to look
Settings → Apps → your app → Mobile data and Wi-Fi → allow background data and allow usage while data saver is on.
Why this gets in the way
This one is about sync rather than the reminders themselves: without background data, records from your other devices only arrive when you open the app. Reminders keep working, because they live in the system rather than on the network.
Glossary: Background data
Only the steps for this case are shown.
The app has notification settings of its own as well. Our guide: Telegram notifications not working on Android: fixes
The app has notification settings of its own as well. Our guide: WhatsApp notifications not working on Android: what to check
List complete
Now test it on a real reminder, instructions below.
Point the phone camera at the code: the same list opens with your choices.
The page address remembers your choice, so you can send the link to whoever has a silent phone: they open it and get the instructions for their model straight away.
The list is generic: it works the same for any app with reminders or alarms, or for a messenger. KIPRI is only mentioned as an example, so substitute whichever app is going quiet on you.
How to check whether it worked
In the app you care about, set a reminder exactly 15 minutes from now, lock the phone and press the button. You can close this tab: the timer remembers the time and will wait for you.
Leave the phone alone until the countdown ends: unlocking wakes the system and spoils the test.
Time is up. Did the reminder arrive?
The skin is leaving the app alone
If reminders still run late in real life, repeat the test over three hours: some skins only put an app to sleep after a long idle stretch.
What is left is choosing where the reminders live. KIPRI schedules them on the phone itself, so they fire without the internet. Download for Android
The system is shifting the reminder
That is what an inexact alarm or a battery restriction looks like. Start with these steps, change one setting at a time and rerun the test.
The app was not allowed to show it
Either notifications are blocked or the skin stopped the app entirely. Start with these steps, change one setting at a time and rerun the test.
Set a reminder fifteen minutes out, lock the phone and put it face down. Do not touch it: unlocking resets the sleep timer and ruins the test.
Arrives on the second, and you are done. Late or missing, and you go back to the list, change one setting at a time and rerun the same test. That is how you find out which one was in the way.
Fifteen minutes is sometimes not enough: some skins only kill an app after an hour or two of idling. If the quick test passes but real life still runs late, repeat it with a three-hour gap.
And do not install "optimisers" or "boosters" from the app store. They do exactly the thing you are complaining about: close background processes.
If none of it helped
- Check whether notifications from other apps arrive. If the whole phone is quiet, the problem is the system rather than one app: look at your night schedule and reboot.
- Make sure a reminder actually exists, rather than a task with no time on it. That is the most common cause among the ones that have nothing to do with settings.
- If the phone has a work profile or parental controls, restrictions may be set at device policy level, and local settings do not override them.
- And write to the app developer. If the app does not show the status of its own permissions, that is their shortcoming, not yours.
- Instructions for one specific model have been collected for years at dontkillmyapp.com, a community project rather than ours.
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