How to recover deleted notifications on Android
Android notifications can fill up rather quickly depending on how much of a social butterfly you are, and there might be occasions when you accidentally cleared the notifications without checking properly, only to realize that you have missed out on something important. If you've done this before and memories of swiping something important into non-existence by accident return, all hope is not lost! Let's find out how.
Prior to Android 11, things were a bit tricky in case you wanted to take a peek at old notifications. Stock Android 11 users, however, can recover and see recent notifications on their Android device without too much fuss.
Now that Android 12 is widely available for most smartphones and the different Android 12-based skins, it is an easy thing to retrieve your Android notifications in double quick time. Just in case you own a smartphone with an Android skin that doesn't natively support this feature, there are several other apps that could do this for you.
Jump to:
- How to view your Notification History in stock Android 12
- How to view your Notification History in stock Android 11
- How to see old notifications on ColorOS 11
- App-based solutions
How to view your Notification History in stock Android 12
To ensure that you have access to all notifications on your device, even after you thought you deleted them, you will need to turn on the 'Notification History' feature. Once this is done, the tool will keep track of every single notification you received over the past 24 hours.
Even if you swipe away notifications from the drop-down tray by accident, you can still access them provided you have enabled this feature and check it within 24 hours. Let's first learn how to enable the 'Notification History' feature on stock Android devices running Android 12.
- Launch the Settings menu on your Android smartphone that runs on stock Android 12.
- Scroll down to Notification & status bar from the menu and select More settings.
- Tap Notification history and ensure that the alert slider is enabled.
- Your smartphone will now keep a log of all notifications and it can be viewed for 24 hours.
In case you had already enabled the 'Notification history' option, you will be able to view a detailed list of notifications your smartphone received over the past 24 hours. Once enabled, the list of notifications will remain blank for some time. The moment you receive several notifications, you can access this menu to tap a notification and it will take you directly to the corresponding app.
How to view your Notification History in stock Android 11
First appearing in Android 11, you will find the following steps to be rather similar in many instances as in Android 12 above. To ensure that you have access to all notifications on your device —even after you thought you deleted them, you will need to turn on the 'Notification History feature'. Once this is done, the tool will keep a track of every notification you received in the past 24 hours. ´
Even if you swiped notifications from the drop-down tray by accident, you can still access them provided you have turned this feature on and check it within 24 hours. Let's first see how you can enable the 'Notification History' feature on stock Android devices that run on Android 11.
- Open the Settings menu on your Android smartphone running stock Android 11.
- Scroll down to Apps & Notifications from the menu and select and tap Notifications.
- Tap Notification history and ensure that the Use notification history toggle is enabled.
- Your phone will now keep a log of all notifications and it can be viewed for 24 hours.
In case you had already enabled the 'Use notification history' option, you will be able to see a detailed list of notifications your phone received over the past 24 hours. Once enabled, the list of notifications will remain blank for some time. Once you have received several notifications, you can access this menu to tap a notification and it will take you directly to the concerned app.
How to see old notifications on ColorOS 11
Oppo smartphones that run Color OS 11 also lets users access deleted notifications. The steps here are similar to what we saw on stock Android. This also means the user will need to turn on the 'Notification history' feature to start logging data. To access the notification history on ColorOS 11, you need to follow these steps
- Go to Settings.
- Tap Notification & Status bar.
- Then tap Manage notifications.
- Select More.
- Tap Notification History and ensure that the notification history toggle is enabled.
If your smartphone is running on Android 10 or older, getting access to deleted notification can be tricky.
App-based solutions
Notification History Log
The above solution works fine for stock Android users, but we were disappointed to find that it wouldn't work on phones that had a different UI setup, such as is the case with Samsung phones. Fortunately, there is a useful app that will work on all phones that allows you to effectively recover and manage your notification history.
Notification History Log by ZipoApps is a well-designed app that keeps a log of all notifications (up to a day old, but you can pay for a more comprehensive history), and after you activate the 'Advanced History' settings, it allows you to launch the app responsible for those notifications. You're able to blacklist certain apps and customize what gets recorded for recovery. All in all, it can be quite useful, even with the free version.
How to access notification history using Nova launcher
If your phone's UI deviates too far from Android stock, you might want to consider installing a new launcher instead. While we have a list of favorite launchers available for your Android phone, Nova Launcher is always a favorite and comes particularly recommended for this purpose.
Hats off to Karl Bell, who shared this tip for retrieving your notifications using Nova Launcher in the comments: From the Nova launcher widget itself, select Activities and then Settings. In the options presented under Settings, you should find the Notification Log.
Have you ever accidentally deleted your notification history? How did you try to recover it? Let us know in the comments.
This article was updated in June 2022 while preserving previously published comments.
Well I read mine but very quickly I deleted its there anyway I can find
If you're getting this volume of notification, you don't have them set up well. Most of them are noise to get you involved back with the app to see ads and not really important.
You should turn off notifications in most every app. Really. You need to budget your attention and time to your ends and values, not the what the app makers want. Budget your time on social media if you use it at all. The FOMO is illusionary and works against your goals.
Use Do Not Disturb. Only allow important contacts set with a star to break through.
Notifications are mostly Noisification. Your time and attention is more important. Set your phone and apps up for your success, not the apps success.
Misleading subject! I often don't even know which one I ended up dismissing because it just happened to scroll under the thumb due to the arrival of a new notification. Seeing the notification log won't be very helpful because there is no easy way to tell which of those I might have just dismissed. Besides, if the dismissed notification happened to be old, then it may not even exist in the log (the log only keeps the last 50).
Have you tried this notification history log app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CLogix.notification.history
really helpful thanks
I'm already in developer mode on my Samsung Note 10+ and there is no "Settings" shortcut.
All I want to do is view recent Public Safety Alerts, which seem to have been moved from the "Messages" app to the "Notifications". When I swept the notification to the right, I didn't expect the alert itself to become inaccessible.
Need to see recent alerts on Note 10+ (Verizon)
Did you figure it out?
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Admin
Dec 2, 2019 Link to commentInteresting information
TeslaCoil Apps says that Nova Launcher has no such feature, because that would be collecting personal customer data, which they have pledged to never do. I do not find any notification-log feature myself under Nova Launcher settings.
long press empty space on your homescreen > widgets > long press activities (shortcut) > scroll down and press Settings (white icon) > scroll down to notification logs. Hope this helps.
I have entered developer mode and tried all the steps above. I'm using a Sony Xperia X. I need to recover a notification from this morning to be able to file charges for breaking an order of protection for the safety of myself and my 2 year old son.
I followed the steps as what you suggested but I cannot find notification log on my phone. I use Tecno Camon I. Android 7.0 and it has HiOS v3. 2.0
Yo! What the hell is the Build Number?
Thank you! :) Cool. I've just done the steps in the article like:
1. set the developer mode
2. at the widgets I did drag & drop the settings / notifications icon
Now I can see the notification log history, BUT the problem is that
I can only see the main title for a particular notification. For example:
I can see that I had an instagram notification at 21:00, but I can't see what was that exactly? It only shows that "Instagram 21:00" but I can't check what was this notification is about... :( Was it a friend request from somebody or something else... If I tapped on the notification itself then it just opens up the instagram app (as the article said), but I can't see what was the notification about.
I use a Samsung SIII Neo GT-I9301I (Android version = 4.4.2)
Could you help me to explain how can I see what was my instagram notification is about exactly?
The notifications log works on my Moto G5 but it only goes back a few hours to a day max. Any way to go farther back like a week without using a third party app?
Check my blog www.tricksspot.com for some great tech tricks. Do let me know in the comments your feedback or other queries
I am using Huawei P 10 Lite I can't get my notifications back.. How do I do it?!
HUawei P10 you may try this out androidcure.com/recover-lost-notifications-on-android-phones/ I found it on the web.. hope this help!
I have an s7. There is no settings widget on my phone. Is there another way to view old notifications without the widget?
Install Nova launcher. You can keep using Samsung's default launcher, like myself, but it comes with a useful widget. Follow the same steps as above but instead of just finding the "Settings" widget, you want to find the Nova launcher widget, there are 2. Select "Activities" and from there it will show up a large list. You'll then scroll down and find Settings, select it to drop down everything under settings and find Notification Log. Tested and works for myself.