1. Avoid Force-Stopping Apps

When you force stop an app on your phone, Android kills all processes associated with that app. As a result, the app stops sending notifications until you restart it. Therefore, you should avoid clearing important apps from the Recents screen or force-stopping them in any other way to receive notifications as they come.

2. Turn Off Adaptive Battery

Adaptive Battery is a nifty feature on Android that tracks your app usage and only allows your frequently used apps to run in the background. While this feature does improve your Android’s battery life, it can also delay notifications. Here’s how you can turn it off. 

  1. Open up the Settings app and navigate to Battery and device care. 
  2. Go to Battery and then tap on More battery settings. 
  3. Finally, turn off the Adaptive battery option. 

3. Disable Battery & Data Saver

Battery saver on your phone limits an app’s ability to work in the background. As a result, apps may fail to fetch new data when you’re not using them. To avoid this, you must disable the battery saver on your phone. 

  1. Open up the Settings app and navigate to Battery and device care. 
  2. Go to Battery and turn off the switch next to Power saving.  Similarly, enabling a data saver can prevent apps from using your phone’s internet in the background. So, apps that rely on the internet — such as Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others — may fail to send notifications right away. Hence, you should disable the data saver mode as well.
  3. Open the Settings menu and go to Connections > Data Usage.
  4. Tap on Data saver and turn it off from the following menu.

4. Disable Wi-Fi Power Saving Mode

Wi-Fi power saving mode analyzes your data usage patterns over time. When enabled, your phone may disconnect from Wi-Fi on occasion to save power, resulting in a delay in sending notifications. Here’s how you can turn it off.

  1. Launch the Settings app on your phone and navigate to Connections > Wi-Fi. 
  2. Tap on the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner and select Advanced.
  3. Under Intelligent Wi-Fi, turn off the switch next to Wi-Fi power-zsaving mode. 

5. Turn Off Adaptive Notifications

Adaptive Notification is a feature that uses AI to rank and prioritize your notifications based on their importance. As useful as it is, this feature has also been linked to Android notification delays. Hence, it’s best to turn it off if apps are failing to send notifications right away. 

  1. Open the Settings app and go to Apps & notifications > Special app access. 2. Tap on Adaptive Notifications and select None.

6. Disable Do Not Disturb Mode

You can configure Do Not Disturb mode on your phone to turn on automatically on schedule. When the mode kicks in, Android mutes all the alerts on your phone, giving the impression that notifications are arriving late. Follow the steps below to disable Do Not Disturb mode on your phone.

  1. Open the Settings app and navigate to Notifications > Do not disturb.
  2. Make sure that Do not disturb is turned off and it isn’t configured to turn on schedule. 

7. Disable Sleeping Apps (For Samsung Phones Only)

If you own a Samsung Galaxy phone, you can put some of your unwanted apps to sleep and prevent them from using resources in the background. However, this also prevents apps from sending notifications unless you open them. To avoid this, you must disable sleeping apps by following the steps below.

  1. In the Settings app, navigate to Battery and device care > Battery.
  2. Tap on Background usage limits and turn off the Put unused apps to sleep option.

8. Remove Data Usage Restriction for Apps

If the issue of the delayed notifications on Android is limited to a select few apps, it’s likely that you’ve enabled data restrictions for those apps. To allow unrestricted data usage to an app, use the steps below. 1. Long press on the app’s icon and tap on the info icon from the menu that appears. 2. Go to Mobile data and enable the switches next to Allow background data usage and Allow data usage while Data saver is on.

9. Clear App Cache

If the issue remains even after allowing unrestricted data usage, you can clear existing cache data collected by the app to see if that helps. Here’s how.

  1. Long press on the app’s icon and tap on the info icon from the menu that pops open.
  2. Go to Storage and tap on Clear cache at the bottom.

10. Use a Third-Party App

If none of the methods above work, you can use a third-party app like Heartbeat Fixer for GCM. It essentially allows you to configure the interval of the GCM heartbeat to fix notification delays.  You can install it from the Play Store and adjust the GCM heartbeat interval for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data separately. Remember, setting the interval to 1 or 2 minutes can impact your phone’s battery. Hence, you should set it to the recommended value.

Sorry for the Delay

Even today, Android’s notification system remains to be a mess. And a variety of factors contribute to this, ranging from custom manufacturer skins to annoying app bugs. Hopefully, the above solutions have helped you fix delayed notifications on Android and you’re at peace now.