How to enable notification history on your Android (and why you should)
Notifications are an important part of mobile Riddle. They keep you informed and updated throughout your day.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally deleted a notification I needed to read or delete… only to realize that I should have been paying attention. Over the years, that problem has caused me to miss some important communications, news, and updates.
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Luckily, Google offers two options for accessing your notification history, both of which are easy to use. Which one you use will depend on which one you use Android version you have on your device. I’ll be demonstrating this feature on Android 14, but the process is similar for Android 11, 12, 13, and 15.
How to turn on Notification history
Pull the Notifications drawer down twice from the top of the screen and tap the gear icon below the quick tiles to open your phone’s settings.
Once in the Settings app, tap Notifications to go to Notifications settings. You may also need to click Advanced Settings in this menu.
Access Notification history in Android 12.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Enable notification history.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
How to access Notification history
Now that it’s enabled, there are three ways to access Notification history. The first is the easiest. Pull down the Notifications pane once and scroll to the bottom of your notifications. You will now see a History button. If not, skip the next two instructions.
The History button has been added to your Notification shade.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Tap History to access your notifications from the last 24 hours.
All your history is there for you to see.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
If you tap on any of those notification items, you’ll open the app that sent the notification or the settings for that app, from where you can access the app. So if you click on one Notification is slow entry from history, it opens the Slack app.
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The second method is just another way to navigate to your history. Go back to Settings > Notifications. When viewing your Notification history (where you’ve enabled this feature), you’ll see your most recent notifications appear. This is the same page that appears when you tap the History button from within the Notifications pane.
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No matter how you access it, this is a great way to make sure you don’t accidentally miss notifications from any app or service on your Android device.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a way to see all your previous Android notifications?
In short, no. Android only retains notifications from the last 24 hours so they don’t clog up your phone’s local storage. At a certain point, all that locally stored data will slow down the phone until it becomes unresponsive, hence the 24-hour limit. There used to be third-party apps in Google Play Store Those were viable options, but those options are no longer available, unreliable, or too expensive for many people.
