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Notification cooldown could make a return in Android 15 QPR1 to stop notification spam
- Google is preparing to bring back a feature called notification cooldown that gradually lowers the volume of successive notifications from the same app.
- Google briefly introduced the feature in the first developer preview of Android 15 but later removed it from the first beta.
- Evidence suggests the feature hasn’t been scrapped, though, as Google has continued working on it since it was pulled from the beta.
If you’re part of a very active group chat, then you’ve probably heard your phone’s notification tone a million times by now. While these constant alerts are likely welcome, sometimes you’ll get notification spam from an unexpected source. If that happens, the only thing you can do is react after the fact and disable notifications for that source or turn down the notification volume. Thankfully, the first quarterly platform release for Android 15 might have a solution to that problem.
Back in February, when Google released the first developer preview of Android 15, there was a new feature called “notification cooldown” tucked away under Settings > Notifications. This feature, when enabled, would gradually lower the volume of successive notifications coming from the same app. Basically, the feature prevents your phone from going off wildly when you receive a ton of notifications in a very short period of time.
When Google released the first public beta of Android 15, though, it removed the notification cooldown feature. The feature has yet to return, even in the latest Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2 update that’s rolling out today — but there’s strong evidence it hasn’t been abandoned.
For example, in the fourth beta of Android 15, Google toyed with the idea of rebranding the feature to “adaptive notifications.” However, it later scrapped that idea in the first Android 15 QPR1 beta, possibly because Android used to have a different feature by that name. What Google didn’t scrap, though, is a notification that will appear when the feature is activated for the first time. Although I haven’t managed to surface the notification, here are the strings that show what it’ll say:
<string name="adaptive_notification_edu_hun_text">Your device volume and alerts are reduced automatically for up to 2 minutes when you get too many notifications at once.</string>
<string name="adaptive_notification_edu_hun_title">Notification cooldown is on</string>With the release of Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2, we spotted even more additions to the notification cooldown feature. Its page in the Settings app has been completely redesigned to add an educational animation and a single toggle. Previously, the notification cooldown feature offered three options: Apply cooldown to all notifications, apply cooldown to conversations, and don’t use notification cooldown. Now, there’s simply a binary choice: Either it’s on or it’s off.
According to the updated description for the notification cooldown feature, it’ll lower your device’s volume and minimize alerts for “up to two minutes.” Important notifications from “calls, alarms, and priority conversations are not affected,” however.
Although the setting to stop your phone from vibrating like crazy seems to have been removed, Google has added a new toggle that lets you decide whether to apply notification cooldown to work profile apps.
<string name="notification_polite_work">Apply to work profiles</string>
<string name="notification_polite_work_summary">Apply to work profile apps</string>As I mentioned already, the notification cooldown feature still isn’t available, not even in today’s Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2 update. We had to activate it manually to show its updated page in settings. The feature looks like it’s ready for re-release, though, so we wouldn’t be surprised if it shows up in the next Android 15 QPR1 beta ahead of QPR1’s release in December.