A trio of tasty new Android notification enhancements - Major Digest

If I told any average person that my Android phone’s notifications could now be sticky, shareable, and extra-smart about snoozing, they’d probably look at me like I was a lunatic.

And, let’s be honest: They’d probably be justified in that conclusion — even if it weren’t for what I’d just told them. (In case we haven’t met before, hi! I’m JR, and I dress like this on a daily basis.)

Be that as it may, though, the statement is spot on — and as an optimization-obsessed Android enthusiast, I couldn’t be more excited to have that flock of fresh superpowers at my fingertips.

Lemme explain a little more and then show you how you can grant yourself the same advantage (minus the awesome wardrobe).

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3 Android notification advances, illustrated

The easiest way to understand these new notification niceties is to see ’em in action for yourself — so, without further ado…

1. The sticky notification

When I have a notification that’s especially important and that I want to make sure not to dismiss until it’s been properly handled, it now gets set to be sticky — which means even if I accidentally swipe it away or hit the button to dismiss all notifications, it comes right back instead of vanishing into the ether.

2. The shareable notification

Sometimes, a notification has info in it that’d be helpful to save or share somewhere without just having to snag a screenshot. Now, whenever I’m in such a scenario — with an app where I’ve noticed I tend to see notifications that call for such a command — I can actually have an Android system share option right there within those notifications. And, with a single tap on it, I can share the entire contents of the notification into any other app or service on my phone.

3. The smart snoozing notification

Android’s notification-snoozing system is great, in theory, but it’s also much more limited than it should be — with options only to snooze a notification for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, or two hours. So what if you want to snooze something so that it returns at the end of your work day, as often comes up with alerts received during daytime hours? With this addition in place, you can snooze any notification to a specific set time, like 5:30 p.m., and it comes back exactly when you want it — no matter how far away that moment may be.

So there’s our trio of goodies. Now let’s get into how you can get ’em going for yourself.

60 seconds to smarter notifications

All right, clear out approximately one minute in your schedule:

The secret to this nifty notification enhancement all comes down to a supremely useful Android power-user tool and one of my own personal productivity essentials — and that’s a powerful little app called BuzzKill.

BuzzKill is essentially a way to create Gmail-like filters for your Android notifications. I’ve mentioned it before when talking about avoiding back-to-back notification annoyances, creating simple notification summaries, setting up condition-specific custom notification vibration patterns, and more.

Today, though, it’s some recently added abilities within BuzzKill around the three possibilities we just went over that are commanding our attention.

Here’s how to find ’em, if you’re so inspired:

• Go download BuzzKill from the Play Store, if you don’t already have it.
  • The app costs four bucks as a one-time purchase, which — believe me — is nothing compared to the ongoing value it’ll give you.
  • It doesn’t require any unusual permissions, doesn’t collect any form of data from your phone, and doesn’t have any manner of access to the internet — meaning it’d have no way of sharing your information even if it wanted to. 
• Once you’ve gone through the app’s initial setup and made your way to its main screen, tap on the circular button in the lower-right corner of the screen to create a new rule.

1️⃣ Now — for the sticky notification setup (a feature that isn’t technically new within BuzzKill but that only started working consistently well in the relatively recent past):

• Tap the text that says “any app” and change it to the app whose notifications you want to remain persistent.
• If you want to get even more specific and specify a certain type of notifications within that app that should be affected, tap the text that says “contains anything” and change it accordingly.
• Next, tap the text that says “do nothing” and scroll down until you see “Sticky.” Tap it, then tap “Pick action” to confirm.
• Now just tap “Save rule” — and that’s it! The next notification you receive that meets the conditions you just specified should remain sticky and resilient, even if it’s dismissed, and only marking it as done or completed within the app will get rid of it.

2️⃣ For the shareable notification addition:

• Start with the same first two steps from above: Tap the text that says “any app” and change it to the app whose notifications you want to be affected.
• If you want to get even more specific and specify a certain type of notifications within that app, tap the text that says “contains anything” and change it accordingly.
• Next, tap the text that says “do nothing” and this time, scroll down until you see “Add share button” and select that followed by the “Pick action” bar.
• Tap “Save rule” to finish, then watch for the next relevant notification to find and try your snazzy new sharing button.

3️⃣ And, finally, for the smart snoozing enhancement:

• One more time, the same first two steps from above: Tap the text that says “any app” and change it to the app whose notifications you want to be affected.
• If you want to get even more specific and specify a certain type of notifications within that app, tap the text that says “contains anything” and change it accordingly.
• Next, tap the text that says “do nothing” and for this one, scroll down until you see “Add snooze button.” Select that, then tap “Pick action” to wrap it up.
  • Just note that as of now, at least, you can’t add both a sharing button and a snooze command to the same sort of notification — so you’ll need to pick one or the other for any given notification type.
• Tap “Save rule” and stay tuned for the next notification you get to test out your newly improved snoozing.

Not bad, right?! Now you know — and now you, too, can tell all the weirdos around you about your newly sticky, shareable, and extra-smart-snoozing Android notifications and enjoy their quizzical stares.

Damn, it’s good to be a geek sometimes.

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