Stop shopping-app offers flooding your phone, without losing orders and OTPs

To stop promotional notifications on Android without losing order updates and OTPs, filter by what a notification says instead of which app sent it. Switch off a shop’s “Promotions” category in Android’s settings if the app has one; if it doesn’t, Smart Tray in Message Alarm can hide the offers and keep that same app’s codes, payments and deliveries in your tray.

Everything below is for Android phones. iPhones don’t let apps read other apps’ notifications.

Why is turning off a shopping app’s notifications a bad idea?

Because the app that sends “Mega sale, up to 70% off!” at 8 PM is the same app that sends “Your order has been shipped” and “Your login code is 482913”. Switch off Daraz, foodpanda or your mobile operator’s app completely and the offers stop, along with the parcel update, the refund notice and the code you need to sign in.

Wallets and banking apps are worse. Cashback promotions and “You received money” come from the same place, and the second one is something you really want to see.

Our view: an app that mixes its marketing and its order updates into one notification category is making a choice, and that choice isn’t in your favour. You shouldn’t have to accept it.

Can you turn off only offers in Android’s settings?

Sometimes, and it is worth checking first, because it costs nothing. Since Android 8, apps can split their notifications into categories. Long-press an offer notification and open its settings. If you see categories such as “Promotions”, “Offers” or “Marketing” listed apart from “Orders” or “Account”, switch off just that one. You can also open Settings and search for “App notifications”, then pick the app.

Many shopping apps also have their own notification preferences inside the app, usually under the account or profile page, with a switch for marketing messages. Look there too.

The limit is that both depend on the app. Plenty of apps send everything through one category, and turning that off is the same as turning the app off. Google’s Control notifications page covers the built-in options in more detail.

How does Smart Tray tell an offer from an order?

Smart Tray sorts each notification into a category by reading it on the phone: the words in it (discount words, “% off”, data-pack deals and the like, in many languages), the app it came from, and how the app labelled it. Then your rules act on the category.

Every hidden notification shows its reason in the Inbox, for example “Promotion · discount words”, so you can see why it was moved. If a category rule ever catches something it shouldn’t, tap Always keep so it stays in the tray from then on, with Undo if you change your mind.

Category rules work alongside app rules, and the more specific rule wins: a person, then a word, then a group, then a category, then the app. So “Hide Daraz” plus “Keep deliveries” still shows you the Daraz parcel update. The notification bar clean-up guide has a table of these rule pairs.

What if you like one shop’s deals?

A Promotions rule acts on offers from every app. If there is one shop whose deals you actually use, the gentler choice is Digest instead of Hide: the deals still reach you, a few times a day, in one notification. A Keep rule for that whole app won’t bring them back, because a category is more specific than an app. It is the same logic that keeps a hidden shop’s deliveries in the tray, working the other way.

Mobile operator apps deserve a mention, because data-pack offers can arrive daily. They count as promotions, while a recharge confirmation doesn’t read like an offer. If something useful is ever hidden, the Inbox shows the reason, and you can tap Always keep.

What does “You opened 2 of 214” mean?

It is a Smart Tray suggestion. After a few days, Smart Tray counts on the phone how often you tap, swipe away or reply to each app’s notifications. It counts only; it never stores the text for this. When an app clearly sends far more than you read, it says so with your own numbers: “You opened 2 of 214 Daraz notifications. Send them to your digest?”

Another kind spots an app whose offers you ignore while you do open its other notifications, and suggests hiding just the offers. Either way, nothing changes until you tap Apply, there is an Undo, and “Not now” hides the suggestion for 30 days.

Suggestions have hard limits. Smart Tray never suggests hiding a chat app, a person’s chat, codes, payments, calls or deliveries. The worst a suggestion can do is send a shop to the digest, where you read it at 9 AM, 1 PM or 7 PM instead of whenever it likes.

How do you stop the same offer arriving twice?

Hide repeats, which is on by default, sends near-identical notifications from the same app within 24 hours to the Inbox. The flash sale announced at noon, at 4 PM and again at 9 PM shows once.

It never applies to codes, payments, calls, deliveries or people’s messages. Two codes from the same bank in one afternoon both reach you, and so does a friend who sends “hi?” twice.

How do you set it up?

This is the manual way. Smart Tray’s “Clean my tray” set-up proposes the same rules for you (keep codes, payments, deliveries and calls; hide promotions) and adds a 1-day trial so you can see the result before anything is hidden.

1. Open Message Alarm, tap Smart Tray and turn it on, allowing Notification access if Android asks.
2. Add a rule for the Promotions category and set it to Hide, or to Digest if you like to glance at deals.
3. Add Keep rules for Verification codes, Payments and Deliveries, so those stay in the tray from every app.
4. Leave Hide repeats on. It catches the same offer sent again within 24 hours.
5. Check the Inbox after a day and tap Always keep on anything that was moved by mistake.

What if you sell online and need order alerts to be loud?

Then the problem flips. You don’t only want order notifications kept, you want them impossible to miss, while the selling app’s own tips and promotions stay quiet.

Do both. Use Smart Tray to hide the platform’s promotions. Then set an alarm in Message Alarm for that app with Message contains words such as “new order” or “order received”. Matching messages ring on Android’s alarm stream, so the phone rings even on silent, and you can limit it to your working hours with Only during set hours. Keywords match whole words and ignore capital letters.

If your orders are paid through a wallet such as bKash, Nagad, Paytm or PhonePe, Payment Soundbox can also say the money you receive out loud. A voice alert isn’t proof of payment, so check the app or your balance before handing over goods. The payment soundbox guide covers that set-up.

Is there a free notification blocker for promotions?

Smart Tray is one. It is free and unlimited, as are Quiet mode, saved and deleted messages, notification history, spending, bills and the smart features. Message Alarm is a free Android app that rings a loud alarm, even when your phone is on silent, when an important message arrives from a person or with a word you choose; its free plan limits only that side, to 2 watched apps, 3 app alarms a day and 15 a week, and 2 auto-replies a week. No ads. If you’re weighing it against paid notification managers, see BuzzKill and FilterBox alternatives.