If you have a Google Pixel phone, you’ve probably noticed some issues with notifications over the past few weeks. The good part is that it’s not just you. The bad part is that the saga doesn’t seem to have an end in sight for now.

A number of Google Pixel owners are reporting significant issues with delayed or entirely missed notifications. Owners of different Pixel owners have reported that notifications various applications fail to appear in real-time, only actually popping up in a sudden flood when you unlock your phone. I have experienced this for a few months myself on my Pixel 9 Pro—some notifications for apps like WhatsApp might appear while the phone is unlocked, but things like emails will only come in after I unlock my phone if it’s been sitting unused for more than 10 minutes.

It certainly doesn’t help that the April update not only didn’t seem to address the issue at all, but it might actually be worsening things, as people who weren’t complaining before started to complain following the update. Evidence, however, suggests that people have been complaining about similar issues for close to a year, which isn’t great. Personally, I’ve found it to be greatly inconvenient. People rely on smartphone notifications for timely communication, critical alerts, work-related updates, and personal reminders.

Missing a message from a family member, a notification from a work collaboration tool, or even a simple calendar reminder can have tangible consequences. I have personally forced myself into the habit of manually pulling out my phone to check notifications every so often, since the only thing that really comes through are WhatsApp notifications—even notifications for apps like Instagram have been delayed occasionally.

Related

How to Get Reminders for Android Notifications

At times, it can feel like smartphones exist purely to bother us with notifications. There are important notifications among the noise, though, and you don’t want to forget about them. Android allows you to set reminders for notifications easily.

Google hasn’t really acknowledged these issues. It could be coming down to aggressive battery management or background process limitations within Android on Pixel devices, which could delay or suspend background app activity that pushes notifications. This is something that’s commonly seen on some third-party Android skins—it’s something I frequently saw on ColorOS when I owned an Oppo phone—but it’s not something you would expect on Google’s Android, which is supposed to be as clean as Android can get. I guess this is also further reinforcement of the fact that Google’s Android is not, indeed, stock Android.

Google might be packing some notification management improvements as part of Android 16 when it releases soon, but we wouldn’t hold our breath too much.

Source: 9to5Google