Reduce Alerts Between Your Pixel Devices with Notification Sync

I remember being really excited when I got a smartphone that could check emails. I imagined a future life of extreme productivity, where I would prioritize all my incoming messages while brushing my teeth or sitting on the bus. I actually thought that when I got to my desk, I could do a decent job other than just reviewing emails.

Of course, my feelings are a little different these days. We are all constantly bombarded with notifications from multiple email apps and others every day, and today I appreciate the time away from frequent pings and buzzes.

Google introduced a small but useful tweak Android15 For Pixels, which helps reduce notification overload: This means that once you dismiss an alert on one Pixel phone or tablet, you won’t be able to see it again on another phone or tablet.

Set the feature

You will find the new feature in notification settings.
Credit: Lifehacker

Assuming that all your Pixel devices have been updated to the latest Android 15, you may see a notification asking if you want to enable the feature on one or more of them. If you dismissed the notification or it doesn’t appear at all, go to Settings Notifications > Turn off notifications On Pixel devices to find it.

This is a quick setup and doesn’t require much in the way of setup. Hungry Reject on this deviceConfirm that you give the feature permission to manage your notifications and you’re done. If you use multiple Google accounts on the same phone or tablet, you can select the account you want to sync notifications to.

You then need to repeat this process for all the devices you want to keep in sync. If you have a phone or tablet that you want to make sure you always get notifications for, no matter what you’re doing on your other devices, leave this option off. If you prefer to go back to the standard approach, simply turn the toggle switch off again.

One important caveat to keep in mind: All of your devices must be connected to Wi-Fi for universal rejection of notifications. If you’re away on a cellular network with your phone, syncing won’t start until you connect to Wi-Fi at home or elsewhere.

Manage notification sync

You can get your notification history from any device at any time.
Credit: Lifehacker

I tried this using two Pixel phones (as a tech journalist with lots of phones on hand), but it will be most useful when you have a Pixel phone and a Pixel tablet; then you won’t dismiss We receive notifications on one gadget and then have to go through them again on another device.

When all your phones and tablets are enrolled in the sync program, your notifications work as if you were using just one device: An email alert might pop up on both the phone and tablet, for example, but if you swipe or press to read the message, the notification disappears on your other devices.

If you’re worried you might have missed something, Pixel devices have a handy notification history feature that you can use as a safety net. Open Notifications Select from Settings and then Notification history. From here you can enable the feature (if it’s not already enabled) and see recently dismissed notifications.

The number of distracting alerts I hear in the background while I’m trying to do my work has definitely decreased, and it’s something I’ll always keep on when I have multiple Pixels around. Hopefully it’ll be something more widely available on Android in the future, so all phones and tablets are included.