I dont know about others, but sometimes I am not able to check my phone, or be fully present in a conversation that I’m part of. Maybe I’m concentrating on work, or driving, and not able to look. It gets distracting when my phone is constantly buzzing and chiming for 5 minutes straight. Muting the chat can help, but if you forget to check it, or get added to a new one, you can’t really do anything about it. I just want to be able to get notified once that the chat has new messages, decide how I want to react, and then move on from it. Is that too much to ask?
I just set group chat notifications to silent.
I still get a notification that’s easy to spot in the tray/bar, but it doesn’t play sound or vibrate, so it’s not distracting unless I’m already looking at the screen.
I just have my phone silent at all times. I might miss a call once in while, but I don’t get many calls anyways.
Man, phones aren’t for communication, anymore
They are, but the way people communicate changed…
I bet you use an iPhone, right?
Nope. I have an android. I just downloaded an app called buzzkill from a recommendation. We’ll see how well it works out for me
Buzzkill is great, but although it mutes the notification sound, if you’re listening to an audiobook, it mutes that every time there’s a silent notification! Fuckin annoying
I wrote to the dev and he said it’s an Android system thing and there’s nothing he can do about it
Good of him to reply though!
Ahhh, what app are you using for messaging? I would be interested to know how Buzzkill works for you. I use Tasker to customize mine a lot, but a formal solution might be worth trying if it’s good.
I’m using the default messages app on my Google phone. The biggest source of my annoyance is every iPhone user adding reactions and such, which act like a new message for me. So any group chat may as well be a fireworks display of sounds and vibrations when it is active. I’ve only set one rule to cool down on messages for 5 minutes and it’s already made an impact.
The app lets me make specific rules for each app, but I don’t see a way to do a rule per group chat, which would be ideal, but this is already an improvement
Try using Google Messages instead. It will apply iPhone reactions instead of making new massages.
I think that’s a good idea, my solution is to mute group chats and check them when I’m free, but it’s not ideal for the reasons you’ve mentioned.
In whatsapp there’s only the option to mute the chat.
In discord there’s granular level of control that allows me to mute everything but direct notifications (@d00ery).
But if you implemented such a feature, how would you limit it?
i.e. one notification for the first message and then mute all replies for 5 mins? What happens when that one person who always replies an hour later messages?
Could we use AI to check if the conversation is still related to the original message?
From a dev perspective there’s all sorts of solutions but I wonder how would one find the sweet spot.
I imagine it would be “$GroupChatName has new messages…” And can be dismissed the same as any other push notification. Whether or an additional notification comes after that could be configurable
Although it might feel like it’s really important to stay on top of messages outside of those concentrating times, it really is not. Set your own terms for when to read messages and silence your app altogether.
“But what if I miss out on…?”
Don’t let fomo control you. It will awkward at first wanting to check constantly, but you’ll find that in reality you don’t miss much if you check once or twice a day.
I feel like it already works that way… I’ll get 1 notification a day, despite there being constant banter going on in the chat even though I want it to notify me of every individual message.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if it just works in the opposite way you want it to on purpose.
I feel like it’s app dependent. We use discord, and I feel like I get 1 notification per channel, but then other apps like LinkedIn (for shame!) are fucking incessant, and will REnotify me multiple times for things I’ve already dismissed. It’s infuriating.
Do Not Disturb is the default mode on my phone, unless I expect to be present.
If you’re on iOS setting up profiles would work. I have work, driving, and do not disturb. Each one allowing/blocking specific notifications
It was years ago, so my memory might not be perfect, but I had something that kinda did that. I think it was an Xposed module called GravityBox, and there was an option to limit repeat notifications. I had set a cool down period of probably 1 minute, meaning if I received multiple messages within 60 seconds, it would only notify once, but if I received another message 60+ seconds after the first, it would ding again. I’m pretty sure that the cool down period was customizable per app too. Damn, I miss that.
if you use Android, you can use Macrodroid to play the notification sound and show its own notification when this app shows a new notification, but with the condition there Macrodroids notification isn’t there yet. Then you make the apps notifications silent. This way it will only play the sound once until you close the one from Macrodroid.
If you’re on Android, I use an app called buzzkill to add a cooldown after a notification.
It should be mostly possible with ntfy, except everything would have to use it, and most apps just use one of the centralized push notification services.
I have a mildly smart home, and the server sends a push notification via ntfy. I have one of those mobile automaton tools on my phone that plays an mp3 when it sees that kind of notification. Then I have audio notifications turned off in the ntfy app my phone. With sufficiently advanced rules, I think you could set up something like you suggest; if not, a custom app could do it - one notification, and then there rest are silent until you dismiss it.
It’s not a complete solution (unless you use Matrix, which can be configured to send notifications via ntfy), but my point is there’s little technically preventing a solution being hacked together with existing tools. Except for those apps that only use Google or Apples push notification systems. Which is most of them.
I think your last paragraph sums up the reason for my frustration. Most of my family and friends are only chatting via the standard text app for their respective phones, and so I specifically would want to configure those notifications
Yeah, it’s not ideal. I feel you; when group texts get chatty, it gets really annoying and you have to mute it. Good luck in your quest, though.
Matrix can send notification via ntfy? Do you have more info on that?
No. I know it was something I configured in FluffyChat, and for that to work it must have sent the configuration to the Synapse server; my account is on matrix.org. This is in the Notifications settings of FluffyChat:
Tusky (Mastodon) can also use ntfy, so Mastodon server(s) must support it too. Ring, most (all?) of the Futo communications apps, like Circles. I think ntfy is common for the fdroid/OSS app developers; I see it a lot in OSS apps, like Home Assistant.
My kids baseball (littlest league) got cancelled yesterday for rain.
All communication is done via group chat.
While I appreciate the message itself, I didn’t need a notification and a chime every time another parent sends a 👍.
Perhaps try Alertify.
In my case I use Voice Notify which reads out the messages. Giving the phone a shake shuts it up.
