Google Pixels could soon get a useful notification customization feature
Aug 7, 2026 — 6:28 AM ET
- Google is working on a new feature to let users customize the visibility of notification icons in the status bar.
- Users will be able to choose to see all notification icons, only priority notification icons, or no icons at all.
- Similar features are already available on devices from other OEMs such as OnePlus and Samsung.
Quick Settings customization may be the most talked-about feature in the latest Android Canary 2608 build, but Google is working on a bunch of new things under the hood. We’ve already reported on the new AI clock feature that the company is working on, and now we’ve found evidence of yet another useful feature that could be coming soon.
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Digging into the Android Canary 2608 build, we spotted strings suggesting Google could be working on letting users hide notification icons from the status bar. Users will see a top-level toggle called “Notification icons,” which will let them enable or disable visibility controls for icons in the status bar.
When enabled, it will offer users the following options for customizing notification icon visibility:
- All: Show all notification icons
- Priority only: Show priority notifications only
- None: Show no notification icons
The options are fairly self-explanatory. With “All” selected, users will see notification icons for every notification they receive. “Priority only” will use Android’s built-in notification classification system to show icons only for important or urgent notifications. Meanwhile, “None” will ensure a completely clean status bar.
Here are all the strings related to the feature:
<string name="notification_icons_category">Notification icons</string>
<string name="notification_icons_status_visibility_toggle_purpose">Control visibility of notification icons in the status bar (e.g. show all, hide silent, or show none).</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_hide_silent">Priority only</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_hide_silent_summary">Show priority notifications only</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_show_all">All</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_show_all_summary">Show all notification icons</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_show_none">None</string>
<string name="status_bar_notification_icons_show_none_summary">Show no notification icons</string>
It’s worth noting that other Android OEMs already offer similar features on their phones. OnePlus lets users choose between “Show icon,” “Show number,” or “Do not show.” Samsung offers the following options: “Icons,” “Dot,” or “None.” Xiaomi lets users choose between showing no icons, one icon, or three icons.
With this new feature, Google will bring vanilla Android and Pixel devices on par with other OEMs’ offerings. Naturally, there’s no telling when (or if) Google will actually introduce this feature in Android, but we’re hoping it happens sooner rather than later.
⚠️An
APK teardownhelps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.