Delayed notifications on Android: the setting to change on each phone

By the Crypto Alerts & Alarms team · Published 28 October 2026 · Facts checked 28 October 2026

Android delays notifications to save battery, at two levels. Android itself holds back ordinary push messages and background work while the phone is idle, and phone makers add battery managers of their own, some of which, like Samsung’s, can stop an app until you open it. The fix is the same on every phone: exempt the apps whose notifications cannot wait. Below is where that setting lives on Samsung, Pixel and Xiaomi phones, from each maker’s own help pages, and what we could confirm for OnePlus and OPPO.

Paths come from Google’s, Samsung’s and Xiaomi’s help pages, checked on 28 October 2026. Menus differ by model and software version, so yours may use slightly different words. Exempt only the apps that need it: Google warns that an app without battery optimization “can run more while you’re not using it” and use more battery.

Why Android holds notifications back

Android itself. Android’s developer documentation says a phone left “unplugged and stationary for a period of time, with the screen off” enters Doze. It suspends apps’ network access and defers their background work to brief maintenance windows, which come less often the longer the phone stays idle. Push messages are handled by priority. Firebase Cloud Messaging, Google’s push service, delivers normal-priority messages at once only while the phone is awake; in Doze their delivery “may be delayed” until the phone wakes. High-priority messages can wake a sleeping phone, and Android’s table of power limits puts no Doze limit on them.

Android also sorts apps into App Standby buckets by how recently and how often you use them, and gives rarely used ones less. From Android 13, an app you have not used for 8 days can be moved to the most restricted bucket, unless you have set its battery use to unrestricted. Battery Saver adds limits of its own: Google’s Android help says it “limits or turns off background activity”, so apps “may experience delays”.

The phone maker. Several makers add a battery manager on top. dontkillmyapp.com, an independent site, ranks makers that, in its words, “prefer battery life over proper functionality of your apps”; on 28 October 2026 it put Huawei first, Xiaomi second, OnePlus third, Samsung fourth and OPPO eighth. It is a secondary source and the steps on some of its maker pages have not changed since 2024, so the steps below come from the makers themselves.

Samsung Galaxy: sleeping, deep sleeping and never sleeping apps

Samsung puts apps to sleep by itself. Its application management documentation says an app unused for about 3 days that is causing poor system health, such as battery drain, goes into sleeping mode, where its background jobs and alarms are restricted. An app unused for a long period, “currently set to 16 days” (Samsung says this may change), goes into deep sleep: it becomes active only when you open it, and while inactive it “can’t perform any activities, including notifications or updates.”

Samsung’s help page sorts apps into three lists under Background usage limits:

• Sleeping apps are “currently sleeping but may run in the background if you start to use them again”.
• Deep sleeping apps “will never run in the background. They will only work when you open them.”
• Never sleeping apps are the ones you add so they “will never turn off or sleep in the background”.

1. Open Settings, tap Battery, then Background usage limits. On older models: Settings, Battery and device care, Battery, then Background usage limits.
2. Open Sleeping apps, then Deep sleeping apps. If the app is in either list, tap the More options icon (three vertical dots), tap Edit apps, select the app and tap Remove.
3. Open Never sleeping apps, tap the + sign, select the app and tap Add.
4. If you would rather Samsung stopped putting apps to sleep on its own, turn off Put unused apps to sleep on the same screen.

Source: Samsung, Sleeping apps on your Galaxy phone (Canada, last updated 8 March 2024), checked 28 October 2026. Samsung notes that screens may vary for phones sold in other countries, and some of its regional pages give a different path, through App power management.

Google Pixel: app battery usage and Battery Saver

Google’s Pixel help says Battery Saver and Adaptive Battery “can stop or delay some alerts to save power”. Adaptive Battery is on by default: apps you use less often run less while you are not using them, and Google notes it “may reduce performance and delay notifications”. To exempt one app:

1. Open Settings, tap Apps, then See all apps, and tap the app.
2. Tap App battery usage, then Allow background usage.
3. Choose Unrestricted, which Google describes as removing “limits on how an app uses the battery when running in the background”. Optimized, the default, is what Google recommends for most apps.

Keep an alert or messaging app away from any restricted setting: Android’s developer documentation says that when you restrict an app’s battery, its background work is restricted too.

Battery Saver comes in two strengths. With the standard one on, apps don’t run in the background “unless you turn off battery optimization”, and “low priority notifications may be delayed”. Extreme Battery Saver pauses most apps, and “paused apps won’t send notifications”. To keep an app running in it, open Settings, tap Battery, Battery Saver, Extreme Battery Saver, then Essential apps, and pick the app.

Sources: Google Pixel Phone Help, Keep Adaptive Battery & battery optimization on, Control notifications on your Pixel phone and Use Battery Saver on a Pixel phone; the wording for Unrestricted is from Google’s Pixel Tablet help. All checked 28 October 2026.

Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO: autostart, battery and pop-up permissions

Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO phones run Xiaomi HyperOS or, on older models, MIUI; the POCO F7’s spec page, for example, says “Powered by Xiaomi HyperOS 2”. For its own Mi Fitness app, which has to keep running in the background, Xiaomi’s FAQ lists four settings: Battery saver off, “No restrictions” in background settings, app autostart allowed, and the app locked in the background. Its autostart page also warns against switching autostart off for apps “that you rely on for notifications”. For any app whose notifications matter:

1. Background autostart: open Settings, tap Apps, then Permissions, then Background autostart, and switch it on for the app. These are Xiaomi’s steps for the Xiaomi 14T Pro.
2. Battery: open Settings, tap Battery, scroll down to the app, tap it and choose No restrictions. These are Xiaomi’s steps for the Xiaomi 15 on HyperOS 2.0.
3. Battery saver: keep it off while you need the app’s notifications.
4. Lock the app: Xiaomi says to lock the app in the background “to prevent the system from automatically clearing it”. The FAQs we read do not give the steps.

On MIUI, Xiaomi’s privacy white paper puts autostart and each app’s other controls under Settings, Apps, Manage apps, then the app.

The pop-up permissions. Xiaomi phones also have permissions of their own. Xiaomi’s FAQ for the REDMI 13C lists Show on Lock screen, Open new windows while running in the background and Display pop-up windows, under Settings, Privacy protection, Other permissions, then the app. Another Xiaomi FAQ says to enable the last two, with Background autostart, “to prevent the system from restricting the App’s processes”. Android has no standard way for an app to read MIUI’s pop-up permission, so an app may not be able to warn you when it is off. If an alarm app rings but does not cover the lock screen, it is one of the settings to check.

Sources: Xiaomi FAQs on Background autostart, other permissions, the Mi Fitness app’s background permissions and a watch’s phone settings; the MIUI privacy white paper; the POCO F7 specs. All checked 28 October 2026.

OnePlus and OPPO

OnePlus phones run OxygenOS and OPPO phones run ColorOS, and dontkillmyapp.com ranks both makers on its list. We could not confirm a current menu path on either maker’s own help site on 28 October 2026, so this page gives none rather than one from memory. Look for the same thing as above: in Android’s settings for the app, its battery or background options, and a choice that lets it run in the background. Keep battery saver off when a notification matters.

dontkillmyapp.com has steps for OnePlus (last changed 9 June 2026) and OPPO (last changed 24 July 2024). Treat them as a starting point, since menus may have moved since.

Price alerts from Crypto Alerts & Alarms

Crypto Alerts & Alarms watches prices on our servers and sends each alert to your phone through Firebase at high priority, the kind Doze does not hold back. So for this app the settings that matter most are the maker’s battery settings above. If you use the app’s full-screen alarm, its own check, Make sure alarms ring (Settings › Alarm Management › Alarm reliability), reads the phone’s battery setting and offers a Set to Unrestricted button. On phones where it finds the maker’s autostart screen, it opens it for you and says plainly that it can’t check that setting itself.

For everything else that stops a price alert, from an alert that already fired to the lock screen, see crypto price alerts not working on Android: six fixes.

Test after any change, and after updates

Check these settings again after a major software update or on a new phone. To test, lock the phone, leave it idle for a while and wait for a real notification from the app you changed. For a price alert, set one just above or below the current price and wait with the screen off.

Common questions

Last updated: 28 October 2026. Phone makers move these settings with their software updates. If a path here is out of date, email support@appsfromzero.com and we will correct it.