Your new Android notification superpower

It may seem like a paradox, but notifications are both the best and the worst part of owning an Android device.

On the one hand, notifications let us stay on top of important incoming info — be it a critical Slack message, a personal family text, or an email from a high-priority client or colleague.

On the other hand, man alive, can they be menacing — both distracting and also sometimes ineffective, when something significant comes in and you don’t notice it right away.

To be fair, Android’s got all sorts of smart systems for taming your notifications and making ’em more manageable and effective — both official and by way of crafty workaround. The software’s oft-overlooked notification channels make it easy to control specific sorts of notifications and turn down the noise on less important stuff. And just last week, we talked about a creative way to bring custom vibration patterns to any Android device so you can tell what type of info is alerting you without even having to glance at your screen.

But there’s still the issue of especially important info coming in and falling through the cracks. After all, it’s all too easy to miss a single incoming notification and then fail to notice it until hours later — when it might be too late.

Today, I’ve got a scrumptiously slick ‘n’ simple tool that can help. It’s a new Android notification superpower, and all you’ve gotta do is embrace it.

[Don’t stop here: Get my free Android Notification Power-Pack next and send your Android notification intelligence to soaring new heights.]

Android notifications, amplified

The tool I want to tell you about is an easy-as-can-be way to amplify especially important notifications and make sure you always see ’em right away.

It does that primarily by creating a custom alarm of sorts for your highest-priority notifications — those coming from specific apps and/or with specific keywords in their bodies. When those conditions are met, the system vibrates your phone continuously until you acknowledge it and optionally makes an ongoing sound, too. That way, there’s zero chance you’ll overlook it.

You can even get incredibly nuanced with how and when those actions happen, if you want, and have the alarm active only during certain days and times. If you’re really feeling saucy, you can also have the app read certain notifications aloud when they come in as another way to ensure they catch your attention.

The app that makes all of this happen is a cool little creation called, fittingly enough, NotiAlarm. It’s a free download that’ll work on any Android device.

Now, notably, NotiAlarm does overlap with another tool we’ve talked about before — an extremely versatile power-user tool called BuzzKill that lets you create all sorts of crafty custom filters for your phone’s notifications. If you’re already using BuzzKill, you can accomplish these same sorts of feats with it, and you don’t need NotiAlarm in addition.

But fantastic as it is, BuzzKill is a bit complex. It falls more in the power-user camp, and it also costs four bucks to use. So all in all, it isn’t for everyone.

NotiAlarm, in contrast, is super-simple and also free. Even if you aren’t inclined to create an entire array of custom filters for your notifications, it does this one thing and does it well — and it’s remarkably easy to get going.

The app does have some mildly annoying ads throughout its configuration interface, but that’s it. You can opt to disable those and support the developer with a one-time $10 upgrade, if you want, but you don’t have to do that in order to put it to work.

Capisce? Capisce. Lemme show you how to get it up and running now, in a matter of minutes.

Your 2-minute Android notification upgrade

All right — here’s all there is to it:

First, download NotiAlarm from the Play Store (obviously, right?).

Open ‘er up, then follow the prompts to grant the app the various forms of access it needs.

NotiAlarm requires permissions to manage your notifications, display over other apps, and run in the background — for reasons that should all be fairly obvious and are absolutely necessary for what it needs to do. Its privacy policy is clear about the fact that it doesn’t collect or store any personal data or share any manner of info with any third parties.

Once you’re on its main screen, tap the circular plus icon in the lower-right corner to configure your first alarm. That’ll take you to a screen that looks a little somethin’ like this:

NotiAlarm’s configuration screen doesn’t take long at all to get through.JR Raphael, IDG

Tap the plus sign next to the word “Keyword,” then type in whatever keyword you want to act as a trigger for your notification alarm. Maybe it’s a specific person’s name, a specific email address, or some specific term that you know demands your immediate attention. Whatever it is, type it in there, then tap the word “Add” to confirm and save it.

By default, NotiAlarm will trigger your alarm for any notifications that include your keyword. You can also, however, ask it to trigger the alarm for any notifications that don’t include the keyword — so in other words, for all notifications except those containing that keyword. If you’d rather go that route, tap the toggle next to “Keyword Filter Type” to switch its behavior.

The “Keyword” field is the key to making your most important notifications unmissable.JR Raphael, IDG

Next, tap the plus sign alongside the word “App” and select which app or apps you want to be included — Messages, Slack, Gmail, Calendar, or whatever the case may be.

Once you’ve selected an app (or multiple apps), you’ll see the final setup for your new notification rule.JR Raphael, IDG

Now, in the next box down, tap the toggle next to “Alarm” and configure exactly how you want your alarm to work.

You can activate and select a specific sound, via the “Alarm Sound” toggle.

Or you can stick solely with an ongoing vibration, via the active-by-default “Vibration” toggle.

If you want to limit the alarm to certain times, tap the toggle next to “Do Not Disturb Time Range.” And if you want to limit it to certain days, tap the day names under “Repeat Days.” Otherwise, just ignore those fields.

You’ve got ample options for exactly how and when you want your notification alarm to activate.JR Raphael, IDG

And hey, how ’bout that? For most purposes and scenarios, you should now be set! If you want to explore some other options — such as having a notification automatically read aloud, automatically marking a notification as read, or automatically replying to a message-oriented notification with some prewritten response — look a little lower on that same screen.

Otherwise, just tap the “Save” text in the upper-right corner, and that’s it: Your new alarm is now active. And you’ll see it with an active toggle on NotiAlarm’s main screen.

A NotiAlarm notification alarm in its final, fully configured state.JR Raphael, IDG

Now, anytime a notification comes in that meets the conditions you specified, your phone will do exactly what you asked — and an important alert will never go unnoticed again.