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Mobile notifications

You can customize whether channel messages, direct messages and mentions trigger notifications in Zulip's Android and iOS apps.

  • Desktop/Web

  1. Go to Notifications.

  2. Toggle the checkboxes for Channels and DMs, mentions, and alerts in the Mobile column of the Notification triggers table.

Mobile notifications while online

You can customize whether or not Zulip will send mobile push notifications while you are actively using one of the Zulip apps.

  • Desktop/Web

  1. Go to Notifications.

  2. Under Mobile message notifications, toggle Send mobile notifications even if I'm online, as desired.

Testing mobile notifications

For users on Zulip Cloud and Zulip Server 8.0+

Follow these instructions to check the Zulip version for your organization.

To verify that mobile notifications are working as desired, you can send yourself a test notification from the Zulip mobile app. If you belong to more than one Zulip organization, you can separately test notifications for each account.

  • Mobile

  1. Download and install the Zulip mobile app if you have not done so already.

  2. Log in to the account you want to test.

  3. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  4. Tap Settings.

  5. Tap Notifications.

  6. Tap Send a test notification. If notifications are working, you will receive a Test notification.

If you see a banner indicating that notifications have not been enabled for your Zulip server, try logging out of your account and logging in again. This will help if notifications were enabled very recently.

For users on older Zulip servers

Follow these instructions to check the Zulip version for your organization.

Start by configuring your notifications settings to make it easy to trigger a notification.

  • Desktop/Web

  1. Go to Notifications.

  2. In the Mobile column of the Notification triggers table, make sure the DMs, mentions, and alerts checkbox is checked.

  3. Under Mobile message notifications, make sure the Send mobile notifications even if I'm online checkbox is checked.

Next, test Zulip push notifications on your mobile device.

  • Mobile

  1. Download and install the Zulip mobile app if you have not done so already.

  2. If your Zulip organization is self-hosted (not at *.zulipchat.com), check whether push notifications have been set up. If they were set up recently, you will need to log out of your account.

  3. Log in to the account you want to test.

  4. Ask another user (not yourself) to send you a direct message. You should see a Zulip message notification in the notifications area on your device.

Troubleshooting mobile notifications

Checking your device settings

Some Android vendors have added extra device-level settings that can impact the delivery of mobile notifications to apps like Zulip. If you're having issues with Zulip notifications on your Android phone, we recommend Signal's excellent troubleshooting guide, which explains the notification settings for many popular Android vendors.

Enabling push notifications for self-hosted servers

These instructions do not apply to Zulip Cloud organizations (*.zulipchat.com).

To enable push notifications for your organization:

  • Instructions for all platforms

  1. Your server administrator needs to register your Zulip server with the Zulip Mobile Push Notification Service.

  2. For organizations with more than 10 users, an owner or billing administrator needs to sign up for a plan for your organization.

Check whether notifications are enabled on your Zulip server

  • Mobile

  1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Notifications. If notifications are not enabled, you will see a banner that indicates this.

Warning banners

To make sure that you are aware when mobile notifications will not work, you will see a warning banner in the mobile app if:

  • Your server is not registered with the Zulip Mobile Push Notification Service.

  • There is a problem with your server's registration, such as failing to upload required basic metadata.

  • Your organization's plan does not include access to mobile notifications.

  • Your organization's access to mobile push notifications is about to end. This banner is first shown to server administrators, and then to all users.

These banners can be snoozed temporarily, or permanently silenced in notification settings.

Configure warnings about mobile notifications

  • Mobile

  1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Notifications.

  4. Toggle Silence warnings about disabled mobile notifications to configure warning banners in the mobile app.

Why am I seeing “New message” in place of message text?

Administrators of self-hosted Zulip servers can configure push notifications not to include any message content.

Contacting Zulip support

If you are still having trouble with your push notifications, you can send an email to Zulip support. Please be sure to include the troubleshooting data provided by the mobile app.

  • Mobile

  1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Notifications.

  4. Tap Troubleshooting.

  5. Use the Copy to clipboard button or the Email support@zulip.com button to email the troubleshooting data to the Zulip support team.

Don't see an answer to your question? Contact this Zulip server's administrators for support.