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On my iphone, there is a "notifications" setting section, which basically just allows me to choose which apps has the power to notify me.

I was wondering if there's anything similar that is available on the Samsung Galaxy s2?

Basically, we have a new app called Scramble For Friends. And it keeps notifying us every time someone has finished their turn so that I can play. We play random people so this could be in the middle of the night or in a meeting etc.

It just vibrates but still - it's annoying and we want to turn it off. We also don't want to turn off other notifications like Email, Facebook etc. - we just want to turn off the notifications for Scramble For Friends.

I've been looking around in the Settings but there doesn't seem to be a universal page which deals just with notifications.

ale
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Diskdrive
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5 Answers5

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Update: It is posible to disable notifications of individual apps on system level in Jelly Bean (4.1).

Under each application info screen there is now a checkbox for "show notifications" (assuming the app sends notifications). Uncheck that and no more notifications from that app.

You can get to the screen by going to Settings | Apps | {application} or, more conveniently, long-pressing the notification itself and then tapping "App Info".

More details in this article.

Notifications are handled on a per-app basis.
The only way to turn them off is inside that particular application's settings.
This menu - unlike on iOS - can he accessed from inside the application. It's usually an option that comes up after pressing your menu button, or if your phone doesn't have one than it's hidden behind the overflow menu ie. The three dots.

In the case of scramble with friends there's a settings icon on the main screen. There's an option to set the polling interval. The default is 5 minutes.

ale
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    If the app has one. One could easily forget adding this setting. – Nova May 06 '12 at 09:05
  • really? why would android trust the app to do this? So you could have all these apps that you never use on your phone but it'd be impossible to get them to stop executing something in the background? – Diskdrive May 06 '12 at 09:09
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    That would be construed as a design flaw. A good app developer would allow a user to completely quit / unload his app from memory - not leaving anything running in the background. – Sparx May 06 '12 at 09:11
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    @Diskdrive If you never use an app you can just as well uninstall it. Besides, unnecessary notifications are merely annoying but no security hazard. – Nova May 06 '12 at 09:11
  • @sparx : yeah it may be a design flaw on the app developer, but then i would say its probably also a flaw with the OS if there's no way to view or shut down background activity when an app is off. If the activity wasn't sending notifications, you wouldn't even know which app was draining your battery etc. – Diskdrive May 06 '12 at 09:48
  • @Diskdrive most apps are not running in the background they're just cached in memory. The only reason this app has a service is to notify you. –  May 06 '12 at 09:50
  • @RichardBorcsik : yeah i know. I guess I'm just frustrated at this particular problem but also, just surprised, cause so far, I've found android to be a lot better than ios but with this issue, I definitely think ios handles it better. Especially since android apps don't go through the same rigor for approval as an iphone app. At the very least add it as a security permission... – Diskdrive May 06 '12 at 09:56
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    @Diskdrive updated answer. It was there all along. –  May 06 '12 at 10:54
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If you are on Jelly Bean and rooted you can use an app I built to manage notifications for all applications from a single place.

Notifications Off allows you to turn off notifications for all applications. It can also automatically disable notifications for new apps as soon as they are installed.

It has support for profiles and tasker integration for switching profiles.

Notifications Off Screenshot

Screenshot (Click to enlarge image)

Giorgi
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I've developed an app called AppsComposer to handle other apps notifications and sounds, you can disable specific app you need and mute the notification or notification's sound separately:

enter image description here

Mohammed AlBanna
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You get a nice notification blacklist for all installed apps in Smart Launcher 3 .

With a checkbox per app, you allow/disallow notifications in a single place.

This works even with pre-Jellybean Android (I tested with Gingerbread 2.3.6), where you otherwise cannot block notifications of "un-cooperative" apps.

shful
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Does sending notifications require a special permission? If it does, Permissions Denied could help.

Nova
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    It does not. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications .html besides if it would than revoking it could cause the app to force close whenever it wants to notify the user. –  May 06 '12 at 09:18
  • This appears to be a comment posted as an answer. – Firelord Dec 12 '15 at 14:11