Notify! displays Android notifications on the lockscreen

I have configured my Android phone to lock the phone automatically when I hit the power button, and after a certain period of inactivity.

While I'm notified with a sound or vibration when I receive a new notification, I can only see the icon but do not know what it is about until I unlock the phone and check it out.

Sometimes I prefer to read the notification or at least part of it without that hassle, especially when I'm doing something else and do not have time for that.

The basic idea of the Android application Notify! is to display new notifications on your phone's lock screen.

It needs to be configured before it can do so though. First thing you need to do is enable notification access for it. This can be done with two taps after you have launched the application.

The second thing is to replace the current lock screen with the Notify! widget. To do so, long-tap on the current widget and remove it. Tap on the plus icon afterwards and select Notify! from the selection.

Once that is out of the way, you can start to customize the application.

Customization

The free version is somewhat limited when it comes to that, but more about that later. The most important screen is the app screen.

Here you find listed all installed applications, and you can enable one, some or all apps. If you enable an app, its notifications will be displayed on the lock screen. The list is not sorted alphabetically unfortunately, which means that it may take a while before you find the app that you want to enable.

It makes sense to only select important apps from the list as you may be flooded with unimportant notifications otherwise that may push out the important ones.

You can modify a couple of other settings besides selecting the applications that you want to see notifications from when the device is locked.

You can hide the clock and marquee on the lock screen, modify the clock and data font size, switch to a 24-hour format from the default 12-hour format, and change how days and months are displayed (abbreviated or not).

Usage and Verdict

One of the cooler features of the application is that you can display the email body on the lockscreen without enabling it. While that is handy at times, it can also be a issue, for instance if your phone or tablet falls into the wrong hands.

If you have enabled emails for instance, someone could use the information displayed in those emails, for instance to reset account passwords or use authentication pins for apps.

I would not use this for email because of that, while I do not have issues using it for chat applications for example.

Notify! has its uses, and if you are careful when it comes to the selection of apps you want to see notifications from on the lockscreen, then there is nothing wrong with using it for that purpose.

All in all a handy application.

Advertisement