Are you getting those random, pesky Google News notifications that keep popping up throughout the day?
Even worse is when it’s one story that always shows up on your notifications bar at least once a day, all day, while others you dismiss stay that way.
Well, you can get rid of this using your settings in your Android device and have a peaceful day after all.
Why Google News Notifications Keep Popping Up
To begin with, this has nothing to do with you having signed in to multiple Google accounts on your device.
Over the years, Google’s mobile experience has eroded into a mess of poorly-targeted and clickbait news. It also has updates of some of its mobile apps to prioritize interesting and newsy articles, and the worst part of it is that they’re not doing a good job at it.
What began as Google Now back in the day, when proactive and predictive information worked well, is now Google News Feed, which serves up news instead of preemptive cards.
Instead of finding useful or relevant things, you get more news stories actively pushed to you every day through push notifications. This happens even when you’re not looking for something to read, or not using these Google apps.
The rise of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, has led to these networks becoming the primary news sources of what’s happening in our lives. They’re already feeding people up-to-the-minute news in real-time. Google News is probably Google’s play of pushing stories to its 2+ billion-user base before they open Facebook or Twitter.
The problem is the algorithms and targeting are poor and mediocre, and often, people are irritated, more than they would be interested in reading the stories.
How to Disable Google News Notifications in Your Android Device
You can turn Google News notifications on/off, or pick the number of notifications you get. You can also control specific types of notifications like daily briefing email or breaking news.
Note: You can only manage notifications in your Google News app, not on the web.
To see the notifications in Google News app, do this:
- Launch Google News app
- Tap your photo at the top right
- Now tap Activity
- Open settings
To change notifications, do this:
- Launch Google News app
- Tap your photo at the top right
- Now tap Settings
- Tap Notifications under General
To control the number of notifications, turn Get notifications on or off, and then under Number of notifications, tap between low and high.
If you want to control specific notifications, go to the type you want to turn on or off e.g. Breaking news, daily briefing, headlines, sharing, your interests, news magazines, and others.
To control your daily briefing emails and notifications:
Go to Settings in Google News app and turn on Daily briefing emails, and select not to get them then turn it off. If you want to get notifications when daily briefing is ready, go to Settings>Notifications and turn on Daily Briefing. Turn off if you don’t want to get them.
Elsier is an avid tech writer, who loves mobile apps, games, music, and cars. When she’s not catching up on the latest in tech, she’s binging on reruns of her favorite series.
