expo-notifications

Notifications module

Usage no npm install needed!

<script type="module">
  import expoNotifications from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/expo-notifications';
</script>

README

expo-notifications

Provides an API to fetch push notification tokens and to present, schedule, receive and respond to notifications.

Features

  • 📣 schedule a one-off notification for a specific date, or some time from now,
  • 🔁 schedule a notification repeating in some time interval (or a calendar date match on iOS),
  • 1️⃣ get and set application badge icon number,
  • 📲 fetch a native device push token so you can send push notifications with FCM and APNS,
  • 😎 fetch an Expo push token so you can send push notifications with Expo,
  • 📬 listen to incoming notifications in the foreground and background,
  • 👆 listen to interactions with notifications (tapping or dismissing),
  • 🎛 handle notifications when the app is in foreground,
  • 🔕 imperatively dismiss notifications from Notification Center/tray,
  • 🗂 create, update, delete Android notification channels,
  • 🎨 set custom icon and color for notifications on Android.

Installation in managed Expo projects

Please refer to the installation instructions in the Expo documentation.

Installation in bare React Native projects

For bare React Native projects, you must ensure that you have installed and configured the expo package before continuing.

Add the package to your npm dependencies

expo install expo-notifications

Configure for iOS

Run npx pod-install after installing the npm package.

In order to be able to receive push notifications on the device:

  • open Xcode workspace from your ios folder
  • select your project from the Navigator pane
  • switch to Signing & Capabilities tab
  • ensure that the Push notifications capability is present (if it's not, click the "+ Capability" button and add the capability to the project).

Configure for Android

In order to be able to receive push notifications on the device ensure that your project is set up for Firebase. For more information on how to do it, see this guide.

This module requires permission to subscribe to device boot. It's used to setup the scheduled notifications right after the device (re)starts. The RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED permission is added automatically.

Expand to view how the notification icon and the default color can be customized in a plain React Native app

  • To customize the icon:

    You can customize two icons: the default and the large one. See the Android documentation for more details. The steps for them are very similar. The only difference is the tag in the second step.

    1. You will need to ensure that the icon is properly set up and added the project. To read more on how to create a notification icon and add it to the project check out the “Create notification icon” section at the official Android guide. Remember the name you use for the icon asset, you will need it later!
    2. Then head over to android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml and add a <meta-data> tag of android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_icon" (or android:name="expo.modules.notifications.large_notification_icon" if you are changing the large icon) inside the <application> node referencing the custom icon with @drawable/<notification_icon_name_you_used_in_step_1>, like here.
    3. In the end your AndroidManifest.xml should look more or less like this:
    <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" ...>
      ...
      <application ...>
        ...
        <meta-data
          android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_icon"
          android:resource="@drawable/ic_stat_notifications" /> <!-- @drawable/<insert_notification_icon_name> -->
        ...
      </application>
    </manifest>
    
  • To customize the default color of the notification:

    1. you will need a color resource added to the native project's resources. Some information on how to do this can be found in the official Android guide. The most simple and fail-safe instructions would be to:
      1. ensure that there is a file under android/app/src/main/res/values/colors.xml (if there is none, create it)
      2. ensure that it's a valid resources XML file (it should start with a <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> declaration and have a root node of <resources>)
      3. inside the <resources> node add a <color> node with an arbitrary name (like notification_icon_color) containing the color in HEX format inside, like here.
      4. in the end your colors.xml should look more or less like this:
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
        <resources>
          <color name="notification_icon_color">#4630EB</color>
        </resources>
        
    2. now, when the color is added to the project, we need to configure expo-notifications to use it when it displays a notification — head over to android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml and add a <meta-data> tag of android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_color" inside the <application> node referencing the custom icon with @color/<notification_icon_color_name>, like here.
    3. In the end your AndroidManifest.xml should look more or less like this:
    <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" ...>
      ...
      <application ...>
        ...
        <meta-data
          android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_color"
          android:resource="@color/notification_icon_color" /> <!-- @color/<insert_notification_icon_color_name> -->
        ...
      </application>
    </manifest>
    
  • An AndroidManifest.xml with both color (of name notification_icon_color) and an icon (of name ic_stat_notifications) name would look like this:

    <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" ...>
      <application ...>
        ...
        <meta-data
          android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_icon"
          android:resource="@drawable/ic_stat_notifications" />
        <meta-data
          android:name="expo.modules.notifications.default_notification_color"
          android:resource="@color/notification_icon_color" />
        ...
      </application>
    </manifest>
    

Config plugin setup (optional)

If you're using EAS Build, you can set your Android notification icon and color tint, add custom push notification sounds, and set your iOS notification environment using the expo-notifications config plugin (what's a config plugin?). To setup, just add the config plugin to the plugins array of your app.json or app.config.js as shown below, then rebuild the app.

{
  "expo": {
    ...
    "plugins": [
      [
        "expo-notifications",
        {
          "icon": "./local/path/to/myNotificationIcon.png",
          "color": "#ffffff",
          "sounds": ["./local/path/to/mySound.wav", "./local/path/to/myOtherSound.wav"],
          "mode": "production"
        }
      ]
    ],
  }
}
Expand to view property descriptions and default values

  • icon: Android only. Local path to an image to use as the icon for push notifications. 96x96 all-white png with transparency.
  • color: Android only. Tint color for the push notification image when it appears in the notification tray. Default: "#ffffff".
  • sounds: Array of local paths to sound files (.wav recommended) that can be used as custom notification sounds.
  • mode: iOS only. Environment of the app: either 'development' or 'production'. Default: 'development'.

Add your project's credentials to Expo server (optional)

If you would like to send notifications with Expo servers, the servers will need to have a way to authenticate with APNS/FCM that they are authorized to send notifications on your behalf. To do this:

  • for Firebase Cloud Messaging, check out this guide: Uploading Server Credentials,
  • for APNS:
    • run expo credentials:manager in the root of your application,
    • if you've already uploaded a Push Notifications Key in another project and would like to reuse it in the current project, select Use existing Push Notifications Key in current project (you may need to set slug and ios.bundleIdentifier fields in app.json so that the server knows to which experienceId and bundleIdentifier the key should be attributed),
    • if you've never uploaded a Push Notifications Key or would like to add a new one
      • select Add new Push Notifications Key
      • if you'd like to let Expo handle the process, select Let Expo handle the process
      • if you can't let Expo handle the process or you want to upload your own key, select I want to upload my own file

Common gotchas / known issues

Fetching a push token takes a long time on iOS

getDevicePushTokenAsync and getExpoPushTokenAsync can sometimes take a long time to resolve on iOS. This is outside of expo-notifications's control, as stated in Apple's “Troubleshooting Push Notifications” technical note:

This is not necessarily an error condition. The system may not have Internet connectivity at all because it is out of range of any cell towers or Wi-Fi access points, or it may be in airplane mode. Instead of treating this as an error, your app should continue normally, disabling only that functionality that relies on push notifications.

As mentioned, the most common reasons for this this are either an invalid Internet connection (fetching a push token requires an Internet connection to register the device with the service provider) or an invalid configuration of your App ID or Provisioning Profile.

Here are a few ways people claim to have solved this problem, maybe one of these will help you solve it, too!

Read the Apple's Technical Note on troubleshooting push notifications

Go read the Apple's Technical Note on troubleshooting push notifications! This the single most reliable source of information on this problem. To help you grasp what they're suggesting:

  • Make sure the device has a reliable connection to the Internet (try turning off Wi-Fi or switching to another network, and disabling firewall block on port 5223, as suggested in this SO answer).
  • Make sure your app configuration is set properly for registering for push notifications (for bare workflow check out this guide, for managed workflow this is done automatically for you by expo-cli) as also suggested by this StackOverflow answer.
  • If you're in bare workflow you may want to try to debug this even further by logging persistent connection debug information as outlined by this StackOverflow answer.

Try again in a little while

Disable network sharing on your device

You may need to disable network sharing as this may impact the registration as suggested by this StackOverflow answer.

Restart your device

If you just changed the APNS servers where the app should be registering (by installing a TestFlight build over an Xcode build on the same device) you may need to restart your device as suggested by this StackOverflow answer.

Setup your device with a SIM card

If the device you're experiencing this on hasn't been setup with a SIM card it looks like configuring it may help mitigate this bug as suggested by this StackOverflow answer.

Setting custom notification sounds

Custom notification sounds are only supported when using EAS Build, or in the bare workflow.

To add custom push notification sounds to your app, add the expo-notifications plugin to your app.json file:

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      [
        "expo-notifications",
        {
          "sounds": ["local/path/to/mySoundFile.wav"]
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

After building your app, the array of files will be available for use in both NotificationContentInput and NotificationChannelInput. You only need to provide the base filename- here's an example using the config above:

await Notifications.setNotificationChannelAsync('new-emails', {
  name: 'E-mail notifications',
  sound: 'mySoundFile.wav', // Provide ONLY the base filename
});

await Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: "You've got mail! 📬",
    sound: 'mySoundFile.wav', // Provide ONLY the base filename
  },
  trigger: {
    seconds: 2,
    channelId: 'new-emails',
  },
});

You can also manually add notification files to your Android and iOS projects if you prefer:

Manually adding notification sounds on Android

On Androids 8.0+, playing a custom sound for a notification requires more than setting the sound property on the NotificationContentInput. You will also need to configure the NotificationChannel with the appropriate sound, and use it when sending/scheduling the notification.

For the example below to work, you would place your email-sound.wav file in android/app/src/main/res/raw/.

// Prepare the notification channel
await Notifications.setNotificationChannelAsync('new-emails', {
  name: 'E-mail notifications',
  importance: Notifications.AndroidImportance.HIGH,
  sound: 'email-sound.wav', // <- for Android 8.0+, see channelId property below
});

// Eg. schedule the notification
await Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: "You've got mail! 📬",
    body: 'Open the notification to read them all',
    sound: 'email-sound.wav', // <- for Android below 8.0
  },
  trigger: {
    seconds: 2,
    channelId: 'new-emails', // <- for Android 8.0+, see definition above
  },
});

Manually adding notification sounds on iOS

On iOS, all that's needed is to place your sound file in your Xcode project, and then specify the sound file in your NotificationContentInput, like this:

await Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: "You've got mail! 📬",
    body: 'Open the notification to read them all',
    sound: 'notification.wav',
  },
  trigger: {
    // ...
  },
});

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! Please refer to guidelines described in the contributing guide.


API

The following methods are exported by the expo-notifications module:

Custom notification icon and colors (Android only)

Setting a default icon and color for all of your app's notifications is almost too easy. In the managed workflow, just set your notification.icon and notification.color keys in app.json, and rebuild your app! In the bare workflow, you'll need to follow these instructions.

For your notification icon, make sure you follow Google's design guidelines (the icon must be all white with a transparent background) or else it may not be displayed as intended.

In both the managed and bare workflow, you can also set a custom notification color per-notification directly in your NotificationContentInput under the color attribute.

Android push notification payload specification

When sending a push notification, put an object conforming to the following type as data of the notification:

export interface FirebaseData {
  title?: string;
  message?: string;
  subtitle?: string;
  sound?: boolean | string;
  vibrate?: boolean | number[];
  priority?: AndroidNotificationPriority;
  badge?: number;
}

Fetching tokens for push notifications

getExpoPushTokenAsync(options: ExpoTokenOptions): ExpoPushToken

Returns an Expo token that can be used to send a push notification to this device using Expo push notifications service. Read more in the Push Notifications guide.

Note: For Expo's backend to be able to send notifications to your app, you will need to provide it with push notification keys. This can be done using expo-cli (expo credentials:manager). Read more in the “Upload notifications credentials” guide.

Note: Especially on iOS, Promises returned by this method may take longer periods of time to fulfill. For more information see Fetching a push token takes a long time on iOS.

Arguments

This function accepts an optional object allowing you to pass in configuration, consisting of fields (all are optional, but some may have to be defined if configuration cannot be inferred):

  • experienceId (string) -- The ID of the experience to which the token should be attributed. Defaults to Constants.manifest.id exposed by expo-constants. In the bare workflow, you must provide a value which takes the shape @username/projectSlug, where username is the Expo account that the project is associated with, and projectSlug is your slug from app.json.
  • devicePushToken (DevicePushToken) -- The device push token with which to register at the backend. Defaults to a token fetched with getDevicePushTokenAsync().
  • applicationId (string) -- The ID of the application to which the token should be attributed. Defaults to Application.applicationId exposed by expo-application.
  • development (boolean) -- Makes sense only on iOS, where there are two push notification services: sandbox and production. This defines whether the push token is supposed to be used with the sandbox platform notification service. Defaults to Application.getIosPushNotificationServiceEnvironmentAsync() exposed by expo-application or false. Most probably you won't need to customize that. You may want to customize that if you don't want to install expo-application and still use the sandbox APNS.

Returns

Returns a Promise that resolves to an object with the following fields:

  • type (string) -- Always expo.
  • data (string) -- The push token as a string.

Examples

Fetching the Expo push token and uploading it to a server
import Constants from 'expo-constants';
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

export async function registerForPushNotificationsAsync(userId: string) {
  let experienceId = undefined;
  if (!Constants.manifest) {
    // Absence of the manifest means we're in bare workflow
    experienceId = '@username/example';
  }
  const expoPushToken = await Notifications.getExpoPushTokenAsync({
    experienceId,
  });
  await fetch('https://example.com/', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      userId,
      expoPushToken,
    }),
  });
}

getDevicePushTokenAsync(): DevicePushToken

Returns a native APNS, FCM token or a PushSubscription data that can be used with another push notification service.

Note: Especially on iOS, Promises returned by this method may take longer periods of time to fulfill. For more information see Fetching a push token takes a long time on iOS section of the documentation.

Returns

A Promise that resolves to an object with the following fields:

  • type (string) -- Either ios, android or web.
  • data (string or object) -- Either the push token as a string (for type == "ios" | "android") or an object conforming to the type below (for type == "web"):
    {
      endpoint: string;
      keys: {
        p256dh: string;
        auth: string;
      }
    }
    

addPushTokenListener(listener: PushTokenListener): Subscription

In rare situations a push token may be changed by the push notification service while the app is running. When a token is rolled, the old one becomes invalid and sending notifications to it will fail. A push token listener will let you handle this situation gracefully by registering the new token with your backend right away.

Arguments

A single and required argument is a function accepting a push token as an argument. It will be called whenever the push token changes.

Returns

A Subscription object representing the subscription of the provided listener.

Examples

Registering a push token listener using a React hook

import React from 'react';
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

import { registerDevicePushTokenAsync } from '../api';

export default function App() {
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const subscription = Notifications.addPushTokenListener(registerDevicePushTokenAsync);
    return () => subscription.remove();
  }, []);

  return (
    // Your app content
  );
}

removePushTokenSubscription(subscription: Subscription): void

Removes a push token subscription returned by a addPushTokenListener call.

Arguments

A single and required argument is a subscription returned by addPushTokenListener.

Listening to notification events

Notification events include incoming notifications, interactions your users perform with notifications (this can be tapping on a notification, or interacting with it via notification categories), and rare occasions when your notifications may be dropped.

A few different listeners are exposed, so we've provided a chart below which will hopefully help you understand when you can expect each one to be triggered:

User interacted with notification? App state Listener(s) triggered
false Foreground NotificationReceivedListener
false Background BackgroundNotificationTask
false Killed none
true Foreground NotificationReceivedListener & NotificationResponseReceivedListener
true Background NotificationResponseReceivedListener
true Killed NotificationResponseReceivedListener

In the chart above, whenever NotificationResponseReceivedListener is triggered, the same would apply to the useLastNotificationResponse hook.

useLastNotificationResponse(): undefined | NotificationResponse | null

A React hook always returning the notification response that was received most recently (a notification response designates an interaction with a notification, such as tapping on it).

If you don't want to use a hook, you can use Notifications.getLastNotificationResponseAsync() instead.

Returns

The hook may return one of these three types/values:

  • undefined -- until we're sure of what to return
  • null -- if no notification response has been received yet
  • a NotificationResponse object -- if a notification response was received

Examples

Responding to a notification tap by opening a URL that could be put into the notification's data (opening the URL is your responsibility and is not a part of the expo-notifications API):

import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';
import { Linking } from 'react-native';

export default function App() {
  const lastNotificationResponse = Notifications.useLastNotificationResponse();
  React.useEffect(() => {
    if (
      lastNotificationResponse &&
      lastNotificationResponse.notification.request.content.data.url &&
      lastNotificationResponse.actionIdentifier === Notifications.DEFAULT_ACTION_IDENTIFIER
    ) {
      Linking.openURL(lastNotificationResponse.notification.request.content.data.url);
    }
  }, [lastNotificationResponse]);

  return (
    /*
     * your app
     */
  );
}

addNotificationReceivedListener(listener: (event: Notification) => void): void

Listeners registered by this method will be called whenever a notification is received while the app is running.

Arguments

A single and required argument is a function accepting a notification (Notification) as an argument.

Returns

A Subscription object representing the subscription of the provided listener.

Examples

Registering a notification listener using a React hook

import React from 'react';
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

export default function App() {
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const subscription = Notifications.addNotificationReceivedListener(notification => {
      console.log(notification);
    });
    return () => subscription.remove();
  }, []);

  return (
    // Your app content
  );
}

addNotificationsDroppedListener(listener: () => void): void

Listeners registered by this method will be called whenever some notifications have been dropped by the server. Applicable only to Firebase Cloud Messaging which we use as notifications service on Android. It corresponds to onDeletedMessages() callback. More information can be found in Firebase docs.

Arguments

A single and required argument is a function–callback.

Returns

A Subscription object representing the subscription of the provided listener.

addNotificationResponseReceivedListener(listener: (event: NotificationResponse) => void): void

Listeners registered by this method will be called whenever a user interacts with a notification (eg. taps on it).

Arguments

A single and required argument is a function accepting notification response (NotificationResponse) as an argument.

Returns

A Subscription object representing the subscription of the provided listener.

Examples

Registering a notification listener using a React hook
import React from 'react';
import { Linking } from 'react-native';
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

export default function Container() {
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const subscription = Notifications.addNotificationResponseReceivedListener(response => {
      const url = response.notification.request.content.data.url;
      Linking.openUrl(url);
    });
    return () => subscription.remove();
  }, []);

  return (
    // Your app content
  );
}
Handling push notifications with React Navigation

If you'd like to deep link to a specific screen in your app when you receive a push notification, you can configure React Navigation's linking prop to do that:

import React from 'react';
import { Linking } from 'react-native';
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';
import { NavigationContainer } from '@react-navigation/native';

export default function App() {
  return (
    <NavigationContainer
      linking={{
        config: {
          // Configuration for linking
        },
        subscribe(listener) {
          const onReceiveURL = ({ url }: { url: string }) => listener(url);

          // Listen to incoming links from deep linking
          Linking.addEventListener('url', onReceiveURL);

          // Listen to expo push notifications
          const subscription = Notifications.addNotificationResponseReceivedListener(response => {
            const url = response.notification.request.content.data.url;

            // Any custom logic to see whether the URL needs to be handled
            //...

            // Let React Navigation handle the URL
            listener(url);
          });

          return () => {
            // Clean up the event listeners
            Linking.removeEventListener('url', onReceiveURL);
            subscription.remove();
          };
        },
      }}>
      {/* Your app content */}
    </NavigationContainer>
  );
}

See more details on React Navigation documentation.

removeNotificationSubscription(subscription: Subscription): void

Removes a notification subscription returned by a addNotification*Listener call.

Arguments

A single and required argument is a subscription returned by addNotification*Listener.

Handling incoming notifications when the app is in foreground

setNotificationHandler(handler: NotificationHandler | null): void

When a notification is received while the app is running, using this function you can set a callback that will decide whether the notification should be shown to the user or not.

When a notification is received, handleNotification is called with the incoming notification as an argument. The function should respond with a behavior object within 3 seconds, otherwise the notification will be discarded. If the notification is handled successfully, handleSuccess is called with the identifier of the notification, otherwise (or on timeout) handleError will be called.

The default behavior when the handler is not set or does not respond in time is not to show the notification.

Arguments

The function receives a single argument which should be either null (if you want to clear the handler) or an object of fields:

  • handleNotification ((Notification) => Promise) -- (required) a function accepting an incoming notification returning a Promise resolving to a behavior (NotificationBehavior) applicable to the notification
  • handleSuccess ((notificationId: string) => void) -- (optional) a function called whenever an incoming notification is handled successfully
  • handleError ((error: Error) => void) -- (optional) a function called whenever handling of an incoming notification fails

Examples

Implementing a notification handler that always shows the notification when it is received

import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

Notifications.setNotificationHandler({
  handleNotification: async () => ({
    shouldShowAlert: true,
    shouldPlaySound: false,
    shouldSetBadge: false,
  }),
});

Handling incoming notifications when the app is not in the foreground (not supported in Expo Go)

Please note: In order to handle notifications while the app is backgrounded on iOS, you must add remote-notification to the ios.infoPlist.UIBackgroundModes key in your app.json, and add "content-available": 1 to your push notification payload. Under normal circumstances, the “content-available” flag should launch your app if it isn’t running and wasn’t killed by the user, however, this is ultimately decided by the OS so it might not always happen.

registerTaskAsync(taskName: string): void

When a notification is received while the app is backgrounded, using this function you can set a callback that will be run in response to that notification. Under the hood, this function is run using expo-task-manager. You must define the task first, with TaskManager.defineTask. Make sure you define it in the global scope.

The taskName argument is the string you passed to TaskManager.defineTask as the "taskName". The callback function you define with TaskManager.defineTask will receive the following arguments:

  • data: The remote payload delivered by either FCM (Android) or APNs (iOS). See here for details.
  • error: The error (if any) that occurred during execution of the task.
  • executionInfo: JSON object of additional info related to the task, including the taskName.

Examples

Implementing a notification handler that always shows the notification when it is received

import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

Notifications.setNotificationHandler({
  handleNotification: async () => ({
    shouldShowAlert: true,
    shouldPlaySound: false,
    shouldSetBadge: false,
  }),
});

unregisterTaskAsync(taskName: string): void

Used to unregister tasks registered with registerTaskAsync.

Fetching information about notifications-related permissions

getPermissionsAsync(): Promise<NotificationPermissionsStatus>

Calling this function checks current permissions settings related to notifications. It lets you verify whether the app is currently allowed to display alerts, play sounds, etc. There is no user-facing effect of calling this.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to an object representing permission settings (NotificationPermissionsStatus).

Examples

Check if the app is allowed to send any type of notifications (interrupting and non-interrupting–provisional on iOS)

import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

export async function allowsNotificationsAsync() {
  const settings = await Notifications.getPermissionsAsync();
  return (
    settings.granted || settings.ios?.status === Notifications.IosAuthorizationStatus.PROVISIONAL
  );
}

requestPermissionsAsync(request?: NotificationPermissionsRequest): Promise<NotificationPermissionsStatus>

Prompts the user for notification permissions according to request. Request defaults to asking the user to allow displaying alerts, setting badge count and playing sounds.

Arguments

An optional object of conforming to the following interface:

{
  android?: {};
  ios?: {
    allowAlert?: boolean;
    allowBadge?: boolean;
    allowSound?: boolean;
    allowDisplayInCarPlay?: boolean;
    allowCriticalAlerts?: boolean;
    provideAppNotificationSettings?: boolean;
    allowProvisional?: boolean;
    allowAnnouncements?: boolean;
  }
}

Each option corresponds to a different native platform authorization option (a list of iOS options is available here, on Android all available permissions are granted by default and if a user declines any permission an app can't prompt the user to change).

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to an object representing permission settings (NotificationPermissionsStatus).

Examples

Prompts the user to allow the app to show alerts, play sounds, set badge count and let Siri read out messages through AirPods

import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

export function requestPermissionsAsync() {
  return await Notifications.requestPermissionsAsync({
    ios: {
      allowAlert: true,
      allowBadge: true,
      allowSound: true,
      allowAnnouncements: true,
    },
  });
}

Managing application badge icon

getBadgeCountAsync(): Promise<number>

Fetches the number currently set as the badge of the app icon on device's home screen. A 0 value means that the badge is not displayed.

Note: Not all Android launchers support application badges. If the launcher does not support icon badges, the method will always resolve to 0.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to a number representing current badge of the app icon.

setBadgeCountAsync(badgeCount: number, options?: SetBadgeCountOptions): Promise<boolean>

Sets the badge of the app's icon to the specified number. Setting to 0 clears the badge.

Note: Not all Android launchers support application badges. If the launcher does not support icon badges, the method will resolve to false.

Arguments

The function accepts a number as the first argument. A value of 0 will clear the badge.

As a second, optional argument you can pass in an object of options configuring behavior applied in Web environment. The object should be of format:

{
  web?: badgin.Options
}

where the type badgin.Options is an object described in the badgin's documentation.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to a boolean representing whether setting of the badge succeeded.

Scheduling notifications

getAllScheduledNotificationsAsync(): Promise<Notification[]>

Fetches information about all scheduled notifications.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to an array of objects conforming to the Notification interface.

presentNotificationAsync(content: NotificationContentInput, identifier?: string): Promise<string>

Schedules a notification for immediate trigger.

Note: This method has been deprecated in favor of using an explicit NotificationHandler and the scheduleNotificationAsync method. More info may be found at https://expo.fyi/presenting-notifications-deprecated.

Arguments

The only argument to this function is a NotificationContentInput.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving with the notification's identifier once the notification is successfully scheduled for immediate display.

Examples

Presenting the notification to the user (deprecated way)
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

Notifications.presentNotificationAsync({
  title: 'Look at that notification',
  body: "I'm so proud of myself!",
});
Presenting the notification to the user (recommended way)
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

// First, set the handler that will cause the notification
// to show the alert

Notifications.setNotificationHandler({
  handleNotification: async () => ({
    shouldShowAlert: true,
    shouldPlaySound: false,
    shouldSetBadge: false,
  }),
});

// Second, call the method

Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: 'Look at that notification',
    body: "I'm so proud of myself!",
  },
  trigger: null,
});

scheduleNotificationAsync(notificationRequest: NotificationRequestInput): Promise<string>

Schedules a notification to be triggered in the future.

Note: Please note that this does not mean that the notification will be presented when it is triggered. For the notification to be presented you have to set a notification handler with setNotificationHandler that will return an appropriate notification behavior. For more information see the example below.

Arguments

The one and only argument to this method is a NotificationRequestInput describing the notification to be triggered.

Returns

It returns a Promise resolving to a string --- a notification identifier you can later use to cancel the notification or to identify an incoming notification.

Examples

Scheduling the notification that will trigger once, in one minute from now
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: "Time's up!",
    body: 'Change sides!',
  },
  trigger: {
    seconds: 60,
  },
});
Scheduling the notification that will trigger repeatedly, every 20 minutes
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: 'Remember to drink water!,
  },
  trigger: {
    seconds: 60 * 20,
    repeats: true
  },
});
Scheduling the notification that will trigger once, at the beginning of next hour
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

const trigger = new Date(Date.now() + 60 * 60 * 1000);
trigger.setMinutes(0);
trigger.setSeconds(0);

Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: {
    title: 'Happy new hour!',
  },
  trigger,
});

cancelScheduledNotificationAsync(identifier: string): Promise<void>

Cancels a single scheduled notification. The scheduled notification of given ID will not trigger.

Arguments

The notification identifier with which scheduleNotificationAsync resolved when the notification has been scheduled.

Returns

A Promise resolving once the scheduled notification is successfully cancelled or if there is no scheduled notification for given identifier.

Examples

Scheduling and then canceling the notification
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

async function scheduleAndCancel() {
  const identifier = await Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
    content: {
      title: 'Hey!',
    },
    trigger: { seconds: 5, repeats: true },
  });
  await Notifications.cancelScheduledNotificationAsync(identifier);
}

cancelAllScheduledNotificationsAsync(): Promise<void>

Cancels all scheduled notifications.

Returns

A Promise resolving once all the scheduled notifications are successfully cancelled or if there are no scheduled notifications.

getNextTriggerDateAsync(trigger: SchedulableNotificationTriggerInput): Promise<number | null>

Allows you to check what will be the next trigger date for given notification trigger input.

Arguments

The schedulable notification trigger you would like to check next trigger date for (of type SchedulableNotificationTriggerInput).

Returns

If the return value is null, the notification won't be triggered. Otherwise, the return value is the Unix timestamp in milliseconds at which the notification will be triggered.

Examples

Calculating next trigger date for a notification trigger
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications';

async function logNextTriggerDate() {
  try {
    const nextTriggerDate = await Notifications.getNextTriggerDateAsync({
      hour: 9,
      minute: 0,
    });
    console.log(nextTriggerDate === null ? 'No next trigger date' : new Date(nextTriggerDate));
  } catch (e) {
    console.warn(`Couldn't have calculated next trigger date: ${e}`);
  }
}

Dismissing notifications

getPresentedNotificationsAsync(): Promise<Notification[]>

Fetches information about all notifications present in the notification tray (Notification Center).

Note: This method is not supported on Android below 6.0 (API level 23) – on these devices it will resolve to an empty array.

Returns

A Promise resolving with a list of notifications (Notification) currently present in the notification tray (Notification Center).

dismissNotificationAsync(identifier: string): Promise<void>

Removes notification displayed in the notification tray (Notification Center).

Arguments

The first and only argument to the function is the notification identifier, obtained either in setNotificationHandler or in the listener added with addNotificationReceivedListener.

Returns

Resolves once the request to dismiss the notification is successfully dispatched to the notifications manager.

dismissAllNotificationsAsync(): Promise<void>

Removes all application's notifications displayed in the notification tray (Notification Center).

Returns

Resolves once the request to dismiss the notifications is successfully dispatched to the notifications manager.

Managing notification channels (Android-specific)

Starting in Android 8.0 (API level 26), all notifications must be assigned to a channel. For each channel, you can set the visual and auditory behavior that is applied to all notifications in that channel. Then, users can change these settings and decide which notification channels from your app should be intrusive or visible at all. (source: developer.android.com)

If you do not specify a notification channel, expo-notifications will create a fallback channel for you, named Miscellaneous. We encourage you to always ensure appropriate channels with informative names are set up for the application and to always send notifications to these channels.

Calling these methods is a no-op for platforms that do not support this feature (iOS, Web and Android below version 8.0 (26)).

getNotificationChannelsAsync(): Promise<NotificationChannel[]>

Fetches information about all known notification channels.

Returns

A Promise resolving to an array of channels. On platforms that do not support notification channels, it will always resolve to an empty array.

getNotificationChannelAsync(identifier: string): Promise<NotificationChannel | null>

Fetches information about a single notification channel.

Arguments

The only argument to this method is the channel's identifier.

Returns

A Promise resolving to the channel object (of type NotificationChannel) or to null if there was no channel found for this identifier. On platforms that do not support notification channels, it will always resolve to null.

setNotificationChannelAsync(identifier: string, channel: NotificationChannelInput): Promise<NotificationChannel | null>

Assigns the channel configuration to a channel of a specified name (creating it if need be). This method lets you assign given notification channel to a notification channel group.

Note: For some settings to be applied on all Android versions, it may be necessary to duplicate the configuration across both a single notification and it's respective notification channel. For example, for a notification to play a custom sound on Android versions below 8.0, the custom notification sound has to be set on the notification (through the NotificationContentInput), and for the custom sound to play on Android versions above 8.0, the relevant notification channel must have the custom sound configured (through the NotificationChannelInput). For more information, see "Setting custom notification sounds on Android".

Arguments

First argument to the method is the channel identifier.

Second argument is the channel's configuration of type NotificationChannelInput

Returns

A Promise resolving to the object (of type NotificationChannel) describing the modified channel or to null if the platform does not support notification channels.

deleteNotificationChannelAsync(identifier: string): Promise<void>

Removes the notification channel.

Arguments

First and only argument to the method is the channel identifier.

Returns

A Promise resolving once the channel is removed (or if there was no channel for given identifier).

getNotificationChannelGroupsAsync(): Promise<NotificationChannelGroup[]>

Fetches information about all known notification channel groups.

Returns

A Promise resolving to an array of channel groups. On platforms that do not support notification channel groups, it will always resolve to an empty array.

getNotificationChannelGroupAsync(identifier: string): Promise<NotificationChannelGroup | null>

Fetches information about a single notification channel group.

Arguments

The only argument to this method is the channel group's identifier.

Returns

A Promise resolving to the channel group object (of type NotificationChannelGroup) or to null if there was no channel group found for this identifier. On platforms that do not support notification channels, it will always resolve to null.

setNotificationChannelGroupAsync(identifier: string, channel: NotificationChannelGroupInput): Promise<NotificationChannelGroup | null>

Assigns the channel group configuration to a channel group of a specified name (creating it if need be).

Arguments

First argument to the method is the channel group identifier.

Second argument is the channel group's configuration of type NotificationChannelGroupInput

Returns

A Promise resolving to the object (of type NotificationChannelGroup) describing the modified channel group or to null if the platform does not support notification channels.

deleteNotificationChannelGroupAsync(identifier: string): Promise<void>

Removes the notification channel group and all notification channels that belong to it.

Arguments

First and only argument to the method is the channel group identifier.

Returns

A Promise resolving once the channel group is removed (or if there was no channel group for given identifier).

Managing notification categories (interactive notifications)

Notification categories allow you to create interactive push notifications, so that a user can respond directly to the incoming notification either via buttons or a text response. A category defines the set of actions a user can take, and then those actions are applied to a notification by specifying the categoryIdentifier in the NotificationContent.

On iOS, notification categories also allow you to customize your notifications further. With each category, not only can you set interactive actions a user can take, but you can also configure things like the placeholder text to display when the user disables notification previews for your app.

Calling one of the following methods is a no-op on Web.

setNotificationCategoryAsync(identifier: string, actions: NotificationAction[], options: CategoryOptions): Promise<NotificationCategory | null>

Arguments

  • identifier: A string to associate as the ID of this category. You will pass this string in as the categoryIdentifier in your NotificationContent to associate a notification with this category.
  • actions: An array of NotificationActions, which describe the actions associated with this category. Each of these actions takes the shape:
    • identifier: A unique string that identifies this action. If a user takes this action (i.e. selects this button in the system's Notification UI), your app will receive this actionIdentifier via the NotificationResponseReceivedListener.
    • buttonTitle: The title of the button triggering this action.
    • textInput: Optional object which, if provided, will result in a button that prompts the user for a text response.
      • submitButtonTitle: (iOS only) A string which will be used as the title for the button used for submitting the text response.
      • placeholder: A string that serves as a placeholder until the user begins typing. Defaults to no placeholder string.
    • options: Optional object of additional configuration options.
      • opensAppToForeground: Boolean indicating whether triggering this action foregrounds the app (defaults to true). If false and your app is killed (not just backgrounded), NotificationResponseReceived listeners will not be triggered when a user selects this action.
      • isAuthenticationRequired: (iOS only) Boolean indicating whether triggering the action will require authentication from the user.
      • isDestructive: (iOS only) Boolean indicating whether the button title will be highlighted a different color (usually red). This usually signifies a destructive action such as deleting data.
  • options: An optional object of additional configuration options for your category (these are all iOS only):
    • previewPlaceholder: Customizable placeholder for the notification preview text. This is shown if the user has disabled notification previews for the app. Defaults to the localized iOS system default placeholder (Notification).
    • intentIdentifiers: Array of Intent Class Identifiers. When a notification is delivered, the presence of an intent identifier lets the system know that the notification is potentially related to the handling of a request made through Siri. Defaults to an empty array.
    • categorySummaryFormat: A format string for the summary description used when the system groups the category’s notifications.
    • customDismissAction: A boolean indicating whether to send actions for handling when the notification is dismissed (the user must explicitly dismiss the notification interface- ignoring a notification or flicking away a notification banner does not trigger this action). Defaults to false.
    • allowInCarPlay: A boolean indicating whether to allow CarPlay to display notifications of this type. Apps must be approved for CarPlay to make use of this feature. Defaults to false.
    • showTitle: A boolean indicating whether to show the notification's title, even if the user has disabled notification previews for the app. Defaults to false.
    • showSubtitle: A boolean indicating whether to show the notification's subtitle, even if the user has disabled notification previews for the app. Defaults to false.
    • allowAnnouncement: A boolean indicating whether to allow notifications to be automatically read by Siri when the user is using AirPods. Defaults to false.

Returns

A Promise resolving to the category you just created.

getNotificationCategoriesAsync(): Promise<NotificationCategory[]>

Fetches information about all known notification categories.

Returns

A Promise resolving to an array of NotificationCategorys. On platforms that do not support notification channels, it will always resolve to an empty array.

deleteNotificationCategoryAsync(identifier: string): Promise<boolean>

Deletes the category associated with the provided identifier.

Arguments

Identifier initially provided to setNotificationCategoryAsync when creating the category.

Returns

A Promise resolving to true if the category was successfully deleted, or false if it was not. An example of when this method would return false is if you try to delete a category that doesn't exist.

Types

DevicePushToken

In simple terms, an object of type: Platform.OS and data: any. The data type depends on the environment -- on a native device it will be a string, which you can then use to send notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) or APNS (iOS); on web it will be a registration object (VAPID).

export interface NativeDevicePushToken {
  type: 'ios' | 'android';
  data: string;
}

export interface WebDevicePushToken {
  type: 'web';
  data: {
    endpoint: string;
    keys: {
      p256dh: string;
      auth: string;
    };
  };
}

export type DevicePushToken = NativeDevicePushToken | WebDevicePushToken;

PushTokenListener

A function accepting a device push token (DevicePushToken) as an argument.

Note: You should not call getDevicePushTokenAsync inside this function, as it triggers the listener and may lead to an infinite loop.

ExpoPushToken

Borrowing from DevicePushToken a little bit, it's an object of type: 'expo' and data: string. You can use the data value to send notifications via Expo Notifications service.

export interface ExpoPushToken {
  type: 'expo';
  data: string;
}

Subscription

A common-in-React-Native type to abstract an active subscription. Call .remove() to remove the subscription. You can then discard the object.

export type Subscription = {
  remove: () => void;
};

Notification

An object representing a single notification that has been triggered by some request (NotificationRequest) at some point in time.

export interface Notification {
  date: number;
  request: NotificationRequest;
}

NotificationRequest

An object representing a request to present a notification. It has content — how