Do Not Disturb not working on Android (SOLVED)

Do Not Disturb is such a simple yet important feature available on Android devices for years. It allows users to prevent incoming notifications and calls whenever they are busy or just unwilling to be disturbed at the time. It comes with a ton of configuration options so you can make exceptions for incoming calls, text messages, or notifications for particular contacts or apps. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to work for everyone. Some users report that Do Not Disturb is not working on Android.

Some of them get notifications and calls even when they shouldn’t and others don’t get notifications and calls even when they properly added exceptions. It’s hard to untangle what exactly is causing these issues, but we gave our best to provide you with instructions on how to deal with them.

Table of contents:

1. Check Do Not Disturb settings
2. Reset App preferences
3. Change Notification settings for particular apps
4. Disable Schedule and enable/disable Do Not Disturb manually

Why d the Do Not Disturb not working on my Samsung?

If you still get notifications when Do Not Disturb is ON, you should inspect the DND settings and ensure that you properly configured everything. Also, you can check app notification settings and try disabling the schedule and, instead, enable and disable the mode by hand. Another important thing is to stick with stock apps. Avoid third-party Dialer (Phone App), Messages, or Clock apps as the default apps because they might cause Do Not Disturb to stop working on Android.

1. Check Do Not Disturb settings

Do Not Disturb comes with many options, exceptions for contacts or apps, and a few more notification-related options. So, you’ll need to check everything and ensure that only specific contacts or apps can reach you when Do Not Disturb is on.

You can usually find Do Not Disturb settings under Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb. Once there, check Exceptions for Calls, messages, and conversations.

Also, under Alarms and Sounds, select what sounds you want to hear while Do Not Disturb is enabled.

Remember that these apply to vibration, too. Finally, you’ll find Apps under Exceptions. Apps that you list here will completely or partially negate Do Not Disturb but you have a few options to tweak this, too. Repeating calls are enabled by default so if someone calls you two times repeatedly, your phone will ring. So consider disabling that, too. To remove contacts from Favorites, open Phone or Contacts. Tap on the contact and tap on the star icon at the bottom.

2. Reset App preferences

Under Notification settings in each app, you can find an option to ignore Do Not Disturb. To ensure that no app has this option enabled, you can go through all the apps or simply reset app preferences on Android and be done with it. This will restore the default apps and reset any changes you’ve made to the app settings. It won’t delete any app data.

Here’s how to reset App preferences on your Android:

1. Open Settings.
2. Select Apps.
3. Tap on the 3-dots menu and choose Reset app preferences.
4. Confirm when prompted.

Other than this, there are not many things you can do if you still get notifications other than to individually inspect app notification settings and clear the data. You can even perform a factory reset on your Android, as some users suggest on Reddit, but we believe that this is a system bug, and starting from scratch won’t do you any good most of the time.

The best way is to report the problem to your OEM and hope they’ll address it in the future.

3. Change Notification settings for particular apps

Now, we talked about getting notifications while Do Not Disturb is enabled. However, what if significant notifications like calls, alarms, or important text messages don’t go through even if you set them to go through Do Not Disturb? This is what happens to other users reporting that Do Not Disturb is not working on Android. So, there are users who are on the other side of the problem, which can be even worse if you expect important texts, calls, or alarms while relying on Do Not Disturb to prevent everything else from coming through.

The first step to take is to navigate to Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb and check all exceptions. Start from the top and end at the bottom. Make sure that everything is as it’s supposed to be. Do you want your Alarms to ring with Do Not Disturb enabled? Check the Alarms under Alarms and Sounds. Add contact to Favorites if you want to be notified about their calls and messages. Use the stock Phone (Dialer) app to choose your Favorite contacts and use the stock Clock app to set alarms. You can reset both apps by clearing data in Settings > Apps > Phone/Clock > Storage if you experience some issues.

On the other hand, if you need to allow notifications from just certain apps, but adding them to Apps exceptions does nothing, allow the app to ignore DND. To do so with, say, Instagram Direct messages, open Settings > Apps > Instagram > Notifications > Notification categories > Instagram Direct and enable the Ignore Do Not Disturb option at the bottom.

4. Disable Schedule and enable/disable Do Not Disturb manually

Another thing you can try if DND is not working is to disable the Schedule and just enable and disable Do Not Disturb manually.

Although scheduling makes DND much more useful, recent Android versions seem to have issues with it. We run into reports about Pixel and Samsung users that solved the problem by simply disabling automatic schedules. It’s not ideal but it is what it is. Hopefully, Android 13 fixes some of these problems that, based on some reports, date back to Android 11.

Have you found a way to fix these Do Not Disturb issues we forgot to mention? Thank you for reading and make sure to reach out to us in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in August 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.