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Signal gives you fine-grained control over how and when you receive notifications — globally, per conversation, and through Android’s built-in notification channel system.

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Global notification settings

Access global settings at Settings → Notifications.
Toggle message notifications on or off. When enabled, you can set:
  • Sound — choose a ringtone from your device’s notification sounds, or select None for silent notifications.
  • Vibrate — enable or disable vibration for incoming messages.
  • LED color — on devices with a notification LED, choose a color (or disable the LED entirely by selecting None).
Signal incoming calls use a separate high-priority channel to ensure they ring through. You can configure call ringtone and vibration independently of message notifications.
Under Show in notification settings, choose what appears in the notification shade:
  • Name and message — shows the sender’s name and the message text.
  • Name only — shows the sender’s name but hides message content.
  • No name or message — shows only “New message” with no identifying information.
Use the most restrictive option on shared or work-managed devices to prevent message content from appearing on the lock screen or notification shade.
Signal can re-alert you for messages you have not read. Configure this under Repeat alerts to remind you once, twice, or not at all.
While a conversation is open, Signal can suppress or show notification banners from other chats. Adjust this under In-conversation notifications in global settings.

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Per-conversation notification settings

You can override global settings for any individual conversation or group.
1

Open the conversation

Navigate to the chat you want to configure.
2

Open conversation settings

Tap the contact’s name or the group name at the top of the screen to open conversation settings.
3

Tap Notifications

Under the Notifications section, you can configure:
  • Mute — silence notifications for this conversation for a chosen duration (1 hour, 8 hours, 1 week, or always).
  • Mention notifications (groups) — receive notifications only when you are @mentioned.
  • Custom sound — choose a different notification sound for this conversation.
  • Custom vibration — override the global vibration setting.
Per-conversation mutes and custom sounds persist across devices when Signal Backups are enabled, because conversation notification settings are included in the backup.

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Notification channels (Android 8.0 and later)

On Android 8.0 (Oreo) and later, Signal registers dedicated notification channels with the Android system. Channels give you precise control over notification behavior through the system Settings app, independent of Signal’s own settings.

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Signal’s notification channels

Each contact with custom notification settings also gets its own dedicated channel named after that contact.

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Access channel settings

In Signal, go to Settings → Notifications, tap a notification category, and then tap See all or Advanced → Notification category to jump directly to Android’s system settings for that channel. You can also navigate to Android Settings → Apps → Signal → Notifications and browse all channels from there.
Changes made to channels in Android system settings — such as setting importance to Silent — override Signal’s internal settings for that channel. If notifications suddenly stop working after a system update, check that channels have not been silenced at the OS level.

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Per-contact channels

When you enable a custom sound or vibration for a contact in Signal, Signal creates a dedicated Android notification channel for that contact. The channel is named using the contact’s display name (falling back to profile name, username, or phone number). Deleting a contact’s custom notification settings in Signal removes the dedicated channel. Signal periodically runs a consistency check to delete orphaned channels that no longer correspond to any contact.

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Notification profiles

Notification profiles let you define sets of rules for when and from whom you receive notifications. For example, you can create a Work profile that allows only coworker conversations during business hours, and a Sleep profile that silences everything except calls.

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Create a notification profile

1

Open notification profiles

Go to Settings → Notifications → Notification profiles and tap Create profile.
2

Name and customize the profile

Give the profile a name and choose an emoji. Then configure:
  • Allowed conversations — select specific contacts or groups whose notifications are allowed when this profile is active.
  • Allow all calls — toggle to let all incoming calls through regardless of the allowed conversation list (enabled by default).
  • Allow all mentions — toggle to allow notifications for any message that @mentions you in a group.
3

Set a schedule (optional)

Toggle on Enable schedule and select the days of the week and the start and end times. Signal activates the profile automatically during those windows.Schedules that span midnight work correctly — for example, a profile from 10 PM to 7 AM on Monday will also cover the early morning hours of Tuesday.
4

Save the profile

Tap Save. The profile appears in your list and can be activated manually at any time, independent of the schedule.

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Activate a profile manually

Swipe down in the chat list to reveal the notification profile selector, or go to Settings → Notifications → Notification profiles and tap the profile you want to activate. Tap Turn off to deactivate it before the scheduled end time.

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Do Not Disturb integration

Signal respects Android’s system-level Do Not Disturb (DND) mode. When DND is active:
  • Message notifications are suppressed unless Signal’s notification channels are set to Priority or Alarms in your DND exceptions.
  • Call notifications may still break through if your DND settings allow repeat callers or priority contacts.
To allow Signal calls through DND, go to Android Settings → Sound → Do Not Disturb → Exceptions and add Signal to your priority apps.

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Background message delivery

Signal uses Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) to deliver notifications when the app is in the background. When FCM is unavailable (for example, on devices without Google Play Services), Signal falls back to a background connection — a persistent WebSocket connection maintained by a foreground service. The background connection notification channel (background_connection) is set to low importance by default. If you want to hide the persistent notification it generates, lower the channel’s importance to Silent in Android system settings, or use an Android version that supports hiding low-importance foreground service notifications.
Disabling the background connection notification channel or killing the Signal background service will delay message delivery on devices without FCM support.