Why is my phone not notifying me when i get text messages

Thanks to RCS and other goodies, many OEMs are moving to Android Messages (Google Messages) as their default SMS/MMS clients. And there are good reasons for it, as this is probably one of the most polished Google’s apps to this date. However, some issues show their ugly head from time to time. Users report that the Android text message notification is not working. If you are among them, check the steps we listed below.

Table of contents:

1. Disable Do Not Disturb
2. Check Notification settings
3. Select a different notification sound
4. Reinstall Messages
5. Reset the device to Factory Settings

Why isn’t my phone telling me when I get a text?

Firstly, make sure to check the Do Not Disturb mode and disable it. After that, navigate deep into System settings and then Messages to get to Notifications. Once there, enable notifications for categories.

If that doesn’t help, change the default notifications sound or reinstall Messages. After that, the problem should be gone.

1. Disable Do Not Disturb

The first thing to do is to check if the DND is enabled. The Do Not Disturb mode. This mode will prevent notifications when enabled, which is great if you want it that way. On the other hand, you might’ve turned it on by accident (I know I did a couple of times) and that’s the reason why text message notifications are not working.

So, navigate to Settings > Sounds > Do Not Disturb and disable this feature to eliminate it as a possible culprit for this issue. Check the next step if you can confirm that the DND mode is disabled but the issue persists.

2. Check Notification settings

The next step is to check the notifications and ensure that settings concerning Android Messages are as they should be. Ensure that notifications are enabled for all messaging categories and that there are sound and vibration for incoming notifications. If that’s your preference.

Here’s where to check Notification settings for Android Messages:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Expand All apps.
4. Open Messages.
5. Open Notifications.
6. Once there, ensure that notifications are enabled. You can allow messages to show on the Lock Screen or not, that’s your call.
   
7. Do this for all available categories and check for improvements.

If text message notifications are not working after this step, check the remaining three.

3. Select a different notification sound

While there, in Android Messages Notification settings, let’s try and tackle another thing. Although quite rare, there’s a slight chance that the notification sound assigned to Android Messages isn’t working as the audio file is corrupted. This is super rare but we recommend giving it a try. Just change the notification sound to any other available. For the sake of troubleshooting.

You can do so for the Default notification sound or just change it for Android Messages. Navigate to Settings > Sounds > Notification sound to change the default system notification sound.

4. Reinstall Messages

If, for some strange reason, the issue persists, try reinstalling the app or at least uninstalling its updates and restoring it to system defaults. You can do so from the Play Store or within app settings. Once the app is refreshed, inspect notification settings again and confirm that notifications are enabled for Android Messages.

Here’s how to reinstall Messages for Android via Play Store:

1. Open Play Store.
2. Look for Messages.
3. Expand the app.
4. Tap Uninstall.
5. Restart your phone, get back to Play Store and install Messages or tap Update. Or you can go to system settings and uninstall updates from there.
   

5. Reset the device to Factory Settings

If none of the previous steps helped, nothing comes to mind but a factory reset. This should be your last resort whenever some grave problem arises. Just don’t forget to back up your data before moving to factory reset. Factory Reset deletes all local data and restores the device to its original settings. You can learn more about this in this article where we covered all ins and outs.

Here’s how to perform a factory reset on Android:

1. Open Settings.
2. Choose System.
3. Select Reset options.
4. Tap Erase all (factory reset).
5. Tap Erase all.
6. Your device will restart and you’ll get to the initial setup screen.
7. From there, sign in to Google and/or to OEMs account and restore everything that’s backed up.

That should do it. Make sure to report the issue to Google or your OEM so they can check if the problem is on their side and fix it in the next system update. If the text message notification is not working, that is a big deal and they should address it as soon as possible. Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions with us in the comments section below.

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