New Android 15 feature will make repeated notifications less annoying

(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

What you need to know

Google released the Android 15 Developer Preview 1 today, giving us our first look at the new features coming to phones later this year.
One of the uncovered features is Notification cooldown, which hopes to keep frequent and repetitive notifications in check.
Notification cooldown could help in various situations, like when a bunch of emails or group chat messages are incoming.

Picture it: you're trying to focus on something, and that one group chat or contact is blowing up your Android phone, causing near-constant vibrations. It's something that just about everyone has experienced at one point or another, but it may be a thing of the past.

With the first Android 15 Developer Preview released on Friday, we got a look at a new Notification cooldown feature that will limit the intrusiveness of successive notifications. Notably, Google is enabling Notification cooldown by default on Android 15 devices, at least those running the Developer Preview (via Mishaal Rahman).

Users will have the option of turning on Notification cooldown for either all notifications or just conversations. This option will come in handy if you're trying to reduce the annoyance factor of rambunctious group chats.

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Essentially, the Notification cooldown will lower the intensity of notifications from the same app or conversation. The initial notification from a particular app or conversation will come through at a normal volume. After that, every successive notification will be quieter.

Android 15 DP1 has added the "notification cooldown" feature I first revealed in the Android 14 QPR2 beta for @AndroidPolice. This feature "gradually lower[s] the notification volume when you get many successive notifications from the same app." pic.twitter.com/Cd4Rh0EWbVFebruary 16, 2024

It appears that these repetitive notifications will continue to make noise and will never go completely silent. The idea is that the change in volume will signal to the user that the notifications have come from the same app or conversation. That means if you consciously choose to ignore a notification, you'll know when something different arrives.

Notably, there is an unknown cooldown timer that will reset after a given time period. Once that reset occurs, notifications will come through at full volume, even if they are from the same app or conversation as a prior notification. It would be nice if Google let users customize the cooldown timer, but that is not possible at the moment.

Google's official description of Notification cooldown is that it will "gradually lower the notification volume when you get many successive notifications from the same app."

Notification cooldown seems like it will be a nice addition to Android 15, but it won't replace existing notification management options. Google is aiming for "platform stability" for Android 15 in June of this year. It will be at least "several months" after that before a public rollout of Android 15 commences.

Brady is a tech journalist for Android Central, with a focus on news, phones, tablets, audio, wearables, and software. He has spent the last three years reporting and commenting on all things related to consumer technology for various publications. Brady graduated from St. John's University with a bachelor's degree in journalism. His work has been published in XDA, Android Police, Tech Advisor, iMore, Screen Rant, and Android Headlines. When he isn't experimenting with the latest tech, you can find Brady running or watching Big East basketball.