What Are Android Notification Channels? Mar 4, 2021, 11:23 am EDT | 2 min read Notifications have been a major part of Android since the beginning. They can be both a blessing and a curse, though. To help you fine-tune your experience, Android has a feature called “Notification Channels.” They make notifications a lot better. As smartphones and apps have evolved, so have notifications. In the early days, notification controls were pretty basic. You’d install an app and you could turn notifications on or off. As apps got more complex, so did the notifications. RELATED: Maybe you only want notifications for one specific thing from an app. Some apps have built-in granular notification controls, but not all of them do. And you’d also have to dig through that app’s settings, which might be organized in an unfamiliar way.