The Android OS offers a flexible way of handling notifications to reflect the importance of each of the many apps you have installed on your phone or tablet. Google recognizes that not everything that happens to your device is equally important. Since it’s common for users to pay different degrees of attention to different applications, you have a way of making sure you won’t get distracted by a yet another game you haven’t played in weeks or a diary app that’s been getting on your nerves but is still there because you love journaling.

The default setting for most apps is that your device should vibrate and make a sound on the arrival of each notification. During periods when you need to be left alone and concentrate, the Do Not Disturb option might be an excellent solution to the problem in general, except it might leave out notifications you’d like to be alive to. If you have Android 13, this will be titled Priority Mode to reflect an arguably minor update.

For cases when you feel like this drastic measure might be too much, there’s thankfully a way to silence an especially obnoxious app altogether or at least to move its notifications to a more modest place in the list you see once you expand the notification shade. Fortunately, Android classifies app notifications into a number of categories. These include background synchronization, task notifications, calendar notifications, and more. You can rely on this division to manage specific types of notifications according to your needs. Here’s a step-by-step guide for doing it.

• Tap on the top section of your screen and pull down the notification shade. 

• Find the notification that annoys you and long-press it.

• A menu will pop up. Tap the Silent option in order to stop hearing notifications from this application as well as others in its channel.

Sometimes, however, this solution isn’t the most convenient option. If you’ve missed the notification and can’t see it in the shade anymore, there’s another way in which you can silence the application that’s been frustrating you. It’s also preferable if you have several notification channels for which you’d like to change the notification settings.

• Navigate to your Settings screen.

• Select Notifications.

• Tap the App Settings option.

• Select any application that you don’t want to give you sound notifications anymore. You’ll get to view a list of apps that have recently sent you such notifications. To see the full list, tap Most Recent in the upper left part of the screen and navigate to All Apps. 

Please note that these instructions largely apply to any Android 13-based device including Pixel phones as well as Nokia, Motorola, Asus, and Sony devices. For Samsung Galaxy phones running on Android, the steps should be as follows:

• Swipe down from the top part of your display to open the notification shade with any screen open.

• Long-press a notification from the app you’d like to never hear again.

• Select Deliver Quietly to change this category’s notification settings.

Alternatively, One UI device users can access Notifications from their Settings menu and find Recently Sent under More. This will show you a list of apps that have sent you notifications recently. You can select the one you’d like to silence from there as well. As you can see, Android lets you manage notifications from apps that belong to different notification channels either from the shade or by accessing the Settings menu. Each method has its pros and cons, so pick one according to the situation.

What are the most annoying types of notifications you get? Let’s share in the comments!