A Complete Guide to Fixing Delayed Notifications on Android

Ideally, your smartphone should inform you about new app notifications or updates immediately when they arrive. If you notice a delay in notification delivery — by some seconds or minutes — on your Android device, something is wrong somewhere. The delay shouldn’t be present often, barring the temporary glitch in mobile data or Wi-Fi connectivity. Thankfully, there are a handful of ways to fix delayed notifications on your Android.

Most times, your device will hide or delay notifications to save battery or reduce data usage. Certain system settings could cause an interruption in the regular functioning of app notifications.

In this guide, we list a couple of effective fixes that’ll help get your Android device back to receiving prompt delivery of app notifications.

1. Re-Enable Wi-Fi or Mobile Data

Poor or intermittent network quality is one of the major causes of notification delay on Android and devices running other operating systems. If you’re connected to the internet via Wi-Fi, turn your device’s Wi-Fi off and reconnect to the network. Navigate to Settings > Network & Internet and toggle off Wi-Fi connectivity. Toggle it back on after a couple of seconds.

For mobile data, navigate to Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile Data and toggle off Mobile data. Toggle it back on and check if your notifications are now delivered as soon as they arrive.

You could also disable both Wi-Fi and mobile data from your phone’s notification panel/drawer. Simply swipe down from the top of your screen and tap Wi-Fi or Mobile data to turn them off. Tap them again to re-enable either of them.

2. Fix Using Airplane Mode

Turning off Airplane Mode and turning it back on could also fix network connectivity issues that are delaying app notifications. Swipe down from the top of your screen to reveal the notification panel and tap the airplane icon. That will activate Airplane Mode.

Tap the airplane icon again to toggle off Airplane Mode. If the delay in notifications persists or you don’t receive them at all, proceed to the next troubleshooting method.

3. Remove Background Restriction

To help you save battery life, Android sometimes restrict certain apps from using your device’s battery in the background. While this will tremendously save battery life, the restricted app(s) may not work properly and may delay its notification.

If you notice that the notifications of a particular app aren’t delivered timely, check that the app isn’t restricted from using your phone’s battery in the background.

Step 1: Launch the Android Settings menu and tap ‘App & Notifications’.

Step 2: Tap ‘See All Apps’ to reveal all applications installed on your device.

Step 3: Tap the affected app with delayed notifications.

Step 4: Tap the Advanced drop-down option and click on Battery.

Step 5: Tap Background restriction.

Step 6: Tap Remove on the prompt to disable Background restriction for the app.

That should no longer delay notifications for the app.

4. Disable Battery Saver / Battery Saving Mode

Enabling Battery Saving Mode on your device will limit and restrict some device processes like immediate notification delivery. To prevent notification delay, try disabling the Battery Saver or Battery Saving Mode on your device.

To do this, swipe down from the notification panel and tap Battery Saver to disable the feature. Alternatively, you could navigate to Settings > Battery > Battery Saver and tap the ‘Turn Off Now’ button.

5. Disable Adaptive Battery

Adaptive Battery is another feature of the Android operating system (Android 9 Pie and newer) that sometimes causes notification delay. In a bid to extend your device’s battery life, the Adaptive Battery feature limits battery for apps that you don’t often use, thereby resulting in delayed notifications.

To disable Adaptive Battery, navigate to Settings > Battery > Adaptive Battery and toggle off ‘Use Adaptive Battery’.

6. Disable Data Saver

Like Background Restriction (see method #3 above), Data Saver also prevents some apps from sending and receiving data in the background. That might cause some app notifications to arrive on your device later than usual. To fix it, disable Data Saver (or Data Saving Mode) on your device and check if app notifications are now delivered promptly.

Navigate to Settings > Network & Internet > Data Saver and toggle off the ‘Use Data Saver’ option.

If you don’t want to disable Data Saver for all apps, you can instruct your device to give unrestricted data access to select apps. Apps with unrestricted data access will not have their notifications delayed when Data Saver is enabled. Simply tap Unrestricted data and toggle on the apps you want to grant unrestricted data access.

7. Clear App Cache

If the delayed notification issue is peculiar to a particular app, clearing the app’s cache could help resolve it. Follow the steps below to clear an app’s cache.

Step 1: Open Settings and select ‘Apps & notifications’.

Step 2: Tap ‘See All Apps’.

Step 3: Select the affected app.

Step 4: Next, select ‘Storage & cache’.

Step 5: Tap the ‘Clear Cache’ icon to clear the application’s cache.

8. Disable Do Not Disturb

If you have a ‘Do Not Disturb’ schedule set on your device, all calls, text, and app notifications will be silenced and temporarily delayed. To resolve this, you can either disable ‘Do Not Disturb’ or configure an app to override your device’s ‘Do Not Disturb’ settings.

Navigate to Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications > Advanced > Do Not Disturb and tap the ‘Turn Off Now’ button disable ‘Do Not Disturb’ option.

As mentioned earlier, you can also configure an app to override the notification delay caused by ‘Do Not Disturb’. Follow the steps below to do that.

Step 1: Open your device’s Settings menu and select ‘Apps & notifications’.

Step 2: Next, select the app you want to configure in the ‘Recently opened apps’ section or tap ‘See All Apps’ to select another app.

Step 3: Select Notifications.

Step 4: Select a notification category that you want to override ‘Do Not Disturb’ for.

Step 5: Select Advanced and toggle on ‘Override Do Not Disturb’.

That will ensure that the app’s notifications aren’t delayed even when ‘Do Not Disturb’ is enabled.

Get Prompt Notifications

Along with the fixes mentioned above, you can restart your device or reset network settings. In the rare occasion where your notifications are still being delayed after exhausting all the available options (above), you should update your device’s operating system or restore your device to factory default.

Next up: Notifications often interrupt the music playing on your Android phone. Read the article linked below to learn how to disable and stop Android notifications automatically while playing music.