In this day and age, receiving notifications on your smartphone is basically a sign you’re alive. There aren’t many more satisfying things than seeing all the likes your latest Instagram post has attracted. But the constant flow of new notifications can be annoying sometimes. Especially of those notifications you don’t want to see every 15 minutes.
On one hand, you can control it. For example, that news app that keeps bombarding you with articles you actually want to read, just not right now. So, you go and disable all the notifications from that app.
On the other hand, you can’t control all of them. Example: you don’t want to keep receiving promotions from your carrier via SMS, but you can’t avoid it since you don’t want to disable the notifications from your text app altogether.
When those “uncontrollable” notifications appear, you, driven by a minor dose of rage, tend to swipe swiftly and clear your notification drawer as fast as possible. And in that haste, you dismiss a notification or two you didn’t actually mean to.
These dismissed notifications aren’t lost forever, as it initially appears. They’re stored in the system’s Notification Log, and you can easily go back to them. Unfortunately, you can just use the Notification Log as a reference tool, as there’s no way of actually retrieving notifications. Plus, it’s not very user-friendly.
That’s where, just like with pretty much everything else in Android, third-party apps come to rescue. Yes, there’s an app that allows you to access your recently dismissed notifications, and even undo them. The app is called Unnotification, and it’s free and user-friendly.
I’m going to show you both ways. If you just want to keep your notifications in check, use the built-in tool, as it doesn’t require a third-party app. If you’d like to have a tool that allows you to retrieve notifications, go with Unnotification.
How to view the Notification Log in Android Pie
Many people are actually not aware of it, but Android keeps the record of all the recently received notifications. And you can easily access it. However, this system feature is not supported on all Android phones. For example, you will find it on the Pixel models, but Samsung Galaxy phones miss this this option.
Also, the Notification Log only allows you to view recently dismissed notifications. There’s no way of bringing them back. The downsides are obvious. But the advantage of this method is it requires no third-party apps.
So, if you just want to see the notification history on your phone, do the following:
- Long-press the Home screen.
- Tap Widgets.
- Scroll down, and drag the Settings widget to the Home screen.
- Choose Notification Log.
- Now, tap the newly-created shortcut, and you’ll see the log of all the dismissed notifications.
You can now see why this method isn’t so user-friendly. The only thing it’ll show you besides the list of dismissed notifications is a line of code that shows all the complex details of the notifications. Something you, unless you’re a developer, would probably have a hard time understanding.
How to retrieve deleted notifications in Android Pie
Another, more convenient and user-friendly way of not only viewing the Notification Log but also retrieving the dismissed ones is using an app called Unnotification. It’s available in the Play Store for free.
When you install and set up Unnotification (grant it permission to access Notifications), it will start running in the background (and keep running all the time). While running in the background, the app will ‘listen’ for new notifications. Whenever you dismiss a notification, you’ll automatically be asked if you want to undo your move. It works for everything in your Notifications drawer, whether it’s a new Facebook message or Spotify playback control, for example.
Additionally, a new tile named Last Notification will appear in the Quick Settings menu. Tapping this button will bring back the most recently dismissed notification. So, even if you missed to undo that notification right on the spot, you can still bring it back with this button.
You can also access the above-mentioned Notification Log through this app. Just open the app, tap log button (checklist icon) in the upper right corner, and it’ll open the system’s Notification Log. And finally, you can also blacklist apps you don’t want Unnotification to have access to by pressing the + button in the lower right corner.
Tweak Unnotification for a better experience!
The downside of using Unnotification is that it will constantly run in the background, and you won’t be able to dismiss its own notification. Plus, constant prompts asking you to retrieve dismissed notifications will eventually become annoying.
But don’t worry, there’s even a solution for that! You can choose to prevent Unnotification from running in the background, and make it stop asking you to un-dismiss notifications. All you have to do is open the app, go to Settings (the gear icon), and untick everything except the Use Quick Settings Tile Only option. If you ask me, this is the best way of using this app. It eliminates possible annoyances without sacrificing too much its functionality.
And there you have it. You now know everything you need to know about retrieving dismissed notifications in Android. So, you’ll never have to fear about swiping away the wrong one.
If you have any comments, questions, or even suggestions, don’t hesitate to write it down below.
