2015-16 saw the rise of Snapchat, a new form of story-based social media platform. Snapchat allows users to share short video clips of 10 seconds and photos (officially called Snaps) which can only be viewed by their friends and followers for 24 hours, post which the content will disappear for good. Snapchat also came up with a similar approach to chatting. The messages (photos, videos, or text) once checked disappear forever. The platform has seen meteoric growth in its numbers since the release of a stable version and currently attracts over 229 million daily active users (as of March 2020). The popularity of the disappearing story-based content forced other platforms in the market such as Instagram, Whatsapp, and even Twitter now to adopt it.
There have always been some differences, either in the camera quality or features, between the iOS version of Snapchat and the Android one. Although, an issue that is very common to both of them is that the notifications stop working randomly. The issue has been reported by many users and can be caused by a number of reasons. For starters, if the application doesn’t have the appropriate permissions, the notifications will not work. Other possible reasons include Do Not Disturb mode is active, a bug in the current version of the application, cache overload, etc. Notifications are essential to know when a friend or loved one has sent a message, to not miss out on someone drunk dancing on their story, to get alerted if a message you sent was screenshotted, etc.
We scoured the internet and tried our hands at some potential solutions to the ‘Notifications Not Working on Snapchat’ issue, all of which will be explained in detail in this article.
6 Ways to Fix Snapchat Notifications Not Working Issue
Get Snapchat Notifications to Work Again
The Snapchat problem at hand is not severe at all. Executing all the below-listed solutions shall only take you about 5-10 minutes. We will first be making sure that Snapchat has all the permission it needs to function normally. The list includes permission to push notifications to the phone’s home screen and to stay active in the background. If permissions aren’t an issue, users can try clearing the temporary cache and other app data, update to the latest version or reinstall Snapchat. If the Snapchat notifications recently started to misbehave, try the below quick solutions first.
Contents
- 6 Ways to Fix Snapchat Notifications Not Working Issue
- Get Snapchat Notifications to Work Again
- Method 1: Check if Snapchat Push Notifications are Enabled
- Method 2: Make sure Snapchat is Allowed to Send Notifications
- Method 3: Disable Do Not Disturb Mode
- Method 4: Clear Snapchat App Cache
- Method 5: Allow Snapchat to Access the Internet in the background
- Method 6: Update or Reinstall Snapchat
Sign Out and Back in – This nifty trick has been known to fix a lot of issues with online services. Signing out and in again resets the session and additionally, you can clear the app from your recent apps section to fix a faulty instance. To Sign out: Tap on your profile icon and then on the gear icon to open Snapchat Settings. Scroll all the way down and tap on Log Out. Confirm your action and then swipe away Snapchat from the recent apps tray.
Restart your device – How can we call this a tech ‘How-to’ article without including the evergreen ‘restart your device’ trick? So go ahead and restart your Android/iOS phone once and check if Snapchat notifications start working again. To restart, press and hold the physical power button and choose the appropriate option from the power menu.
Method 1: Check if Snapchat Push Notifications are Enabled
Users are allowed to customize Snapchat notifications to their liking, for example: enable story post notifications for a special someone, friend suggestions, mentions, disable them altogether, etc. from within the application. It is quite possible that you accidentally toggled off notifications the last time you were in there or a new update disabled them automatically. So let’s head down to the Snapchat setting and ensure that isn’t the case.
Open up your App drawer and tap on the Snapchat icon to launch the application. If you aren’t already logged in, enter your username/mail address, password, and tap on the login button.
Tap on your Profile picture (Bitmoji or a white ghost surrounded by a dotted-yellow background) at the top-left corner and then tap on the cogwheel settings icon that appears on the other corner to access Snapchat settings.
In the My Account section, find the Notifications option and tap on it (On Android devices: Notification Settings is located under the Advanced section).
On the following screen, individual toggle switches (or checkboxes) to control whether the app pushes notifications of stories from friends, friend suggestions, mentions, memories, birthdays, etc. will be present. Enable all of them to receive all notifications or only the specific ones that do not seem to work.
At the bottom of the screen, tap on Manage Story Notifications if you aren’t being notified of stories posted by a particular person or any other brand accounts.
Type the concerned person’s name in the search bar and tap on Done to get notified every time they post a new story.
Method 2: Make sure Snapchat is Allowed to Send Notifications
The last few years have seen users grow a lot more concerned about their privacy and this has forced the manufacturers to allow them complete control over what permissions each application on their phone has. Access to camera and microphone aside, users can also control if a particular application is allowed to push notifications. Generally, whenever the user opens an application for the first time, pop-up messages requesting all the required permissions appear. An accidental ‘No’ tap on the notifications permission message may be why they do not seem to work. Nevertheless, users can enable notifications for an application from device settings.
Launch the Settings application on your mobile device.
On an iOS device, locate the Notifications option and tap on it. Depending on the Android device manufacturer (OEM), tap on Apps & Notifications or Applications in the Settings menu.
Sort all the installed applications alphabetically and scroll down until you find Snapchat. Tap to view details.
iOS users can simply toggle the Allow Notifications switch to On position in order to allow Snapchat to push notifications. A few Android users, on the other hand, will need to tap on Notifications first and then enable them.
If the notifications were already enabled for Snapchat, simply toggle the switches to off and then back on to refresh the settings.
Also Read: How to Tag a Location in Snapchat
Method 3: Disable Do Not Disturb Mode
Apart from the general sound profile on our devices, there are also the Silent and Do Not Disturb modes. Both of them are intended to keep distractions at bay when users need to concentrate on something in the offline world. The Do Not Disturb mode is a lot stricter than the Silent mode and doesn’t allow any kind of notifications to get pushed on the home screen. If you have the DND mode active, follow the below steps to disable it and receive all notifications again.
On either of the devices, launch Settings.
Do Not Disturb setting on iOS is listed in the main menu itself while on Android, the DND setting can be found under Sound.
Simply Disable Do Not Disturb mode from here.
iOS users can also disable-enable Do Not Disturb from the control center itself and Android users can add a shortcut tile for the same in their notification tray.
Method 4: Clear Snapchat App Cache
Every application on our mobile device creates temporary cache data to provide a snappier experience. While cache data doesn’t have anything to do with notifications, an overload of them can surely give rise to a number of software issues. So we recommend you to regularly clear cache data of all applications on your phone
Launch the Snapchat application and access its in-app settings (see step 2 of the first method).
Scroll down the settings menu and tap on the Clear Cache option.
On the following pop-up, tap on the Continue button to delete all cache files.
Android users can also clear the app cache from the Settings application.
Also Read: How to Do a Poll on Snapchat?
Method 5: Allow Snapchat to Access the Internet in the background
Another common cause for notifications not working is that Snapchat isn’t allowed to run or use mobile data in the background. Applications that constantly need to stay in touch with their servers and check for notifications of any kind should be allowed to stay active in the background. They may drain your mobile battery and extinguish mobile data but in order to receive notifications, these sacrifices need to be made.
For iOS users:
Open the Settings application and then tap on General.
Choose Background App Refresh on the next screen.
In the following list of installed applications, ensure the switch next to Snapchat is enabled.
For Android users:
Launch phone Settings and tap on Applications/Apps and Notifications.
Find Snapchat and tap on it.
On the app page, tap on Mobile Data & WiFi (or any similar option) and enable the Background data and Unrestricted data usage options on the subsequent screen.
Method 6: Update or Reinstall Snapchat
A final solution to the ‘Snapchat Notifications not working’ issue is to reinstall the application altogether. An inherent bug may be causing the issue and hopefully, the developers have fixed them in the latest build. To update Snapchat:
Open the Play Store on Android devices and the App Store on iOS.
Type Snapchat in the search bar to look for the same and tap on the very first search result.
Tap on the Update button to upgrade to the latest version of the application.
If updating didn’t help and notifications continue to elude you, Uninstall Snapchat altogether.
On iOS – Tap & hold on the Snapchat app icon, tap the Remove button that appears at the top-right corner of the icon, and select Delete from the ensuing dialog box. You will need to confirm your action by tapping on Delete again.
On Android – There are actually a couple of different methods to uninstall an application on Android. The easiest way would be to head down Settings > Applications. Tap on the Application that you would like to remove and select Uninstall.
Restart your device after the uninstallation.
Head back to the Play Store or App Store and install Snapchat again.
Recommended:
- How to Leave a Private Story on Snapchat?
- How to Record without Holding the Button in Snapchat?
- Fix Snapchat Camera Not Working (Black Screen Issue)
- How To Unsend A Snap On Snapchat
We hope this guide was helpful and you were able to fix the Snapchat notifications not working issue on iOS and Android. Let us know which one did the trick for you and if we missed out on any other unique solution in the comments sections below.
