How To Turn Off Notification History On Your Android Phone

So you've temporarily disabled app notifications on your Android phone with the DND mode, and now you're clearing the endless stream of alerts on your phone's notification panel. Then, suddenly, you mistakenly swiped away an important one. Perhaps it was a client's email confirming your meeting later or an alert from your location-sharing app about your family member's whereabouts. Fortunately, Android comes with a Notification History that keeps a record of all your notifications from the last 24 hours, allowing you to go back and review any alerts you've unintentionally dismissed.

However, while this feature does come in handy in certain situations, it also poses potential privacy concerns. The Notification History logs every single one of your notifications, even from confidential apps like your bank and instant messaging platforms. This log is readily accessible from the Settings app and isn't password-protected. This means if someone gets a hold of your unlocked device, they can effortlessly check your Notification History and view sensitive information. If you don't want notifications you've dismissed to be retrievable later, consider deactivating the Notification History function. Here's how.

Turning off the notification history on your Android phone is pretty straightforward. Here's what you need to do:

1. Access the Notification History. There are two ways to do so:
   1. From the notification panel: Swipe down from the top of the screen to access the notification panel. Then, tap on either "History" or "No Notifications." Note: If this option is not there, you likely already have your notification history turned off, but try the next step just to be sure.
   2. From the Settings app. Open your Settings app and navigate to Apps & notifications > Notifications > Notification history. If you're having trouble locating it, just type "notification history" in the Settings search bar.
2. Once you're in the Notification History section, simply off the toggle switch for "Use notification history."

Doing so will automatically delete all the notifications stored in the history, which generally includes the last 24 hours. Moving forward, any new notifications you receive won't be archived in your history and therefore, no longer be accessible once you dismiss them from the notification panel.