IPhone not waking up for notifications

Are you tired of notifications waking your iPhone or iPad and making your screen light up? By using Do Not Disturb mode or changing your notification settings, you can stay in the dark. Here’s how.

The Quick Fix: Turn on “Do Not Disturb” Mode

Apple includes a feature that can quickly silence any iPhone or iPad called “Do Not Disturb.” While active, Do Not Disturb silences incoming calls, messages, and notifications by default, but this can vary depending on how you have it set up.

To enable Do Not Disturb mode quickly, first, launch Control Center on your iPhone or iPad, and then tap the Do Not Disturb button (which looks like a crescent moon).

IPhone not waking up for notifications

Alternately, you can launch Settings, tap “Do Not Disturb,” and tap the switch beside “Do Not Disturb” to turn it on.

With Do Not Disturb enabled and your iPhone or iPad locked, incoming messages and notifications won’t wake your device’s display. To turn off Do Not Disturb, launch Control Center again and tap the Do Not Disturb button until it’s no longer highlighted.

RELATED: How to Configure Do Not Disturb On Your iPhone and iPad

The Deeper Fix: Disable Notifications on Lock Screen

If you don’t want to use Do Not Disturb mode to keep your iPhone or iPad from lighting up when you receive notifications (if you still want all incoming phone calls to come through, for example), you’ll have to dig into your device’s notification settings.

The good news is that Apple allows you to disable lock screen notifications for any app. The bad news is that there is currently no way to edit notification settings across all apps at once, so you’ll have to individually disable lock screen notifications for each app that is waking your device.

To do so, open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.

IPhone not waking up for notifications

In Settings, tap “Notifications.”

IPhone not waking up for notifications

In Notifications, scroll through the list and tap the name of the app that you want to prevent from waking your screen. In this case, we’re using Messages as an example, but you could do it for Facebook Messenger, Signal, Twitter, FaceTime, or any other app.

IPhone not waking up for notifications

In the app’s notification settings, tap “Lock Screen” to uncheck it.

IPhone not waking up for notifications

After that, go back one screen and repeat this process for any other apps that you want to silence on the lock screen.

When you’re done, exit Settings, and you’ll no longer see notifications from those apps on the lock screen. As a result, notifications from those apps will no longer wake your iPhone’s display. Peace at last!

iOS and Android both allow every user to set up different notification settings for each application on an individual basis.  It is likely that your settings for Notifications may need modification if you want MultiLine Text Messages to "Wake up" your phone when it is on the Lock Screen "Sleep" status. 

iOS 

  1. Navigate to your device Settings. 
  2. Tap on NotificationSettings, then on MultiLine.
  3. Check the box that allows Lock Screen notifications. 
    • Ensure MultiLine is allowed to freely show Banners and Notifications related to your incoming MultiLine calls. 

Here are the optimized iOS Notification settings:

IPhone not waking up for notifications

Android

Options will vary, but within MultiLine tab inside the Notifications section of the device Settings.

  •  Show Notifications and Appear on Top selections should both be set to Allowed.  
  • Notifications has several submenu items which can be set to Sound and Popup to enable incoming texts and calls to generate both types of notifications; shown in the image below.

IPhone not waking up for notifications

I have an iPhone 13, running iOS 15.1, and I'm not being alerted to push notifications that arrive while the device is asleep.

When I tap the screen, the display lights up and the message preview is there, so I know it's receiving them, but it's not notifying me.

If the phone is awake, and at the Home screen, and a push notification arrives, the phone makes the notification sound and shows the notification as expected.

This is a problem because it applies to text message notifications; I'm missing texts because the phone isn't notifying me. It also applies to notifications from apps.

This is new to iOS 15.

Things I've checked:

  • The physical switch that turns on "Silent Mode" is Off.
  • In Settings/Notifications, "Scheduled Summary" is Off
  • In Messages settings, "Allow Notifications" is On and Sound is set to "Note".
  • In "Sounds & Haptics", the "Ringer and Alerts" volume is about halfway up, and plenty loud when I test it by tapping the drag handle.
  • No "Focus" is on.
  • No Sleep Schedule is configured in the Health app.
  • "Allow Notifications" is On for the specific apps I'm testing with, and the "Sounds" switch is On.

I can't see any reason the phone is delivering notifications silently when the screen is locked; please let me know what else I can try.

Why doesn't my iPhone light up when I get a notification?

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual, then turn on LED Flash for Alerts.

Why won't my iPhone notify me when I get notifications?

You can fix an iPhone that's not getting notifications by restarting it or making sure notifications are turned on. You should also make sure your iPhone is connected to the internet so apps can receive notifications. If all else fails, you should try resetting the iPhone — just make sure to back it up first.

How do I get notifications to wake my screen iPhone?

Go to Settings and tap Notifications. Select an app under Notification Style. Under Alerts, choose the alert style that you want. If you turn on Allow Notifications, choose when you want the notifications delivered—immediately or in the scheduled notification summary.

Why are my notifications not lighting up my phone?

If restarting your phone didn't do the job, one of the most common reasons notifications don't show on Android is because of the notification settings of the app in question. It's possible that you may have mistakenly messed up with the default notification settings, and so now you're not receiving them properly.