Android 16 may introduce a new compact notification shelf on the lock screen

If you receive a lot of notifications each day, it’s easy for your lock screen to look cluttered. This is problematic, as it not only obscures your beloved wallpaper but also makes important notifications harder to find. This is something that the new compact notification shelf in Android 16 could solve.

In November, I discovered a hidden feature within Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 called lock screen notification minimalism. This mode declutters the lock screen by collapsing notifications into a tiny pill below the clock. Tapping the pill expands the notifications panel so you can see the full content of each notification. This simple feature lets you see your lock screen wallpaper even when you’ve received a ton of notifications.

In the third beta of Android 15 QPR2 that Google released today, I noticed that the lock screen notification minimalism feature was removed. Instead, a new “compact” notification layout option is available for the lock screen. This new setting can be found in the Settings app under the Notifications on lock screen settings. Previously, notifications on lock screen were a dialog that let you choose whether to show all notification content, hide all notification content, or show sensitive content only when unlocked, but Google is turning it into a page with more options.

On the new page, you can choose to have new notifications collapsed into a shelf on your lock screen (the “compact” option) or shown in a full list (the “full list” option). The description for the full list option, which states that it’s the “current default placement,” suggests that Android 16 won’t force the new compact layout on users.

Even if you switch to the compact layout in Android 16, it’s likely that not all notifications will be collapsed. This is just speculation, but I’m guessing that Android’s new Rich Ongoing Notifications will always appear on the lock screen. However, we don’t yet know if this will be the case. Regardless, we can share what the compact notification layout will look like, as I managed to enable the feature in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 3.

Alongside the new compact view, Android 16 may also introduce the “hide seen notifications” option I previously spotted. This automatically hides notifications you’ve already seen from the lock screen. There’s also a new “hide silent notifications” option that removes silent notifications, including conversations, from the lock screen.

The new “Notifications on lock screen” page is currently hidden in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 3. To demonstrate these new options, I manually enabled them within the build on my Pixel device. Given that these options aren’t live in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 3, it’s likely they won’t appear in the stable release of Android 15 QPR2. This is because QPR2 Beta 3 is the final beta for Android 15 QPR2. I’ll keep you updated on whether these new lock screen options make it to the stable Android 16 release, though.