Managing notifications is no easy task, especially when one tries to maintain the delicate balance between a no-interruption work mindset and the fear of missing out on important alerts. This not only applies to personal communication, but workplace interactions as well. A barrage of notifications can be overwhelming, especially if there are active group chats or users are working across multiple professional circles.
With Android 16, Google offers a balancing act courtesy of a new feature called Notification Cooldown that slows the avalanche of notifications. This feature first appeared in the early builds of Android 15, but was subsequently pulled from the stable release. Now, it has again resurfaced in the first developer preview of Android 16.
How to activate Notification Cooldown on your Android 16 smartphone
The core idea here is that if an app is sending multiple notifications in a row, the first one will elicit an alert, as usual, while the subsequent notifications from the same app will be gradually reduced in volume.
With that, Google may have finally created a fuss-free way of making chained notifications less vexing. If that sounds like an intriguing premise, just follow these steps to experience the same nirvana on your Android phone.
Step 1: Open the Settings app.
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Step 2: Scroll down and select Notifications.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Step 3: On the next page, you will find the Notification Cooldown option under the General banner.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Step 4: All you have left to do is flick the toggle corresponding to the Notification Cooldown feature.
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Notification Cooldown is only available in the Android 16 beta
Notification cooldown first appeared during the early testing phase of Android 15, but it was inexplicably pulled from the stable release channel. It has yet to make a comeback on devices running Android 15, either the vanilla Pixel builds or third-party skins from different brands.
Right now, it is only available on phones running the Developer Preview of Android 16. This build is only available to a handful of Google Pixel phones and the Pixel tablet.
You can download Android 16 right now, but only through the Developer Preview. It is, however, advised that users wait at least for the public beta updates of Android 16, as the Developer Preview is likely to have a lot of performance and optimization issues, as well as being fairly tough to install. Of course, it’s always risky installing any beta software on a device, especially if it’s not a spare, as bugs are common. And while bricking a phone completely is fairly rare, it’s not unheard of. So, if you don’t have a device you’re willing to risk, it’s almost always worth waiting until the final release of any new operating system software.
Notification Cooldown is a neat convenience, but it makes an exception for more pressing alerts, such as calls, alarms, reminders, and priority conversations. Also, keep in mind that this feature only silences repetitive alerts for a span of two minutes.
More importantly, these gradually silenced notifications are not lost. Instead, they are simply grouped together under a unified app banner in the notifications shade. You can still access them all by simply tapping on the app’s banner to open each one in the same order as they appeared.