How to turn off KDE connect's persistent notification on Android?

Help
1

First of all thank you to the devs and the community for putting out such a great product, I’m a new user who’s really enjoying KDE and KDE connect.

I was wondering if someone here could help with KDE connect notifications.

My issue is that there’s a persistent notification on my phone (Android 14) saying “Connected to: $hostname” or “Not connect to any device”. I would like to disable this notification if possible.

Things I’ve tried:

  • Swiping the notification left to dismiss it. This works for a short while, but the notification quickly reappears, e.g. after locking my screen
  • Disabling the notification. In the app settings there is an option for “Persistent notification: Tap to enable/disable in Notification settings”. This takes me to the Android settings/App notifications/KDE connect menu, where the only option I have is the to disable notifications completely or not. I don’t want to disable all KDE connect notifications, just the persistent one.

I’ve done a bunch of web search to try to find a way, here’s what I found.

  • Same question, asked 5 years ago, solution doesn’t seem to work anymore
    www_reddit_com/r/kde/comments/b3phtv/any_way_to_disable_kde_connect_notification_on/
  • Same question, asked 3 months ago, same solution is suggested. OP seems super confused. www_reddit_com/r/Pixel6/comments/1amt0ge/how_am_i_able_to_remove_persistent_notifications/
  • Same question, asked 5 years ago. Accepted answer suggests a 3rd party app to suppress the notification. Also suggestions to just disable the persistent indicator from the app, see above.
    android_stackexchange_com/questions/203822/how-to-remove-kde-connect-app-icon-from-notification-bar
  • It looks like Android 14 changed the way persistent notifications work and maybe that’s why I can’t disable them like older answer suggest? developer_android_com/about/versions/14/behavior-changes-all#non-dismissable-notifications
  • Same question from 6 years ago (were those the glory days of kde connect??) in the form of a bug report, necrobumped by someone last year bugs_kde_org/show_bug.cgi?id=401028
  • This person last year seems to be having the opposite problem: discuss_kde_org/t/kde-connect-persistent-notification-on-android-disappears-quickly/2283

I’d appreciate any pointers, thank you!

1 Like
2

if you untoggle the notification in settings, then you lose the notification screen access to events in KDE connect.

for instance when i send a file from my desktop to to my phone by dragging a file to the kde connect icon in the system tray, the file is copied and i see on my phone that an incoming file is being downloaded but no notification shows up to send me to the file… instead i have to find the downloads folder on my phone and open the file there.

pick your least inconvenient option, i guess.

3

On some Android devices, there is a setting that allows you to deny specifically permanent/persistent notifications from apps, but as with a lot of Android features, this depends on the manufacturer.

It may be beneficial to open a feature request in KDE Connect to specifically disable this.

4

No, modern Android allows to toggle different types of notifications. You can disable the permanent one and still get others.

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5

I am on Android 14 (Pixel 7), and have no trouble disabling the persistent indicator. I make heavy use of clipboard sharing, so it was a useful if bulky thing for me in previous Android versions.

14 allows me a customizable pull-down and I put one for clipboard sharing there. Then, I just long-pressed the persistent notification to bring up some options:

Screenshot_20240509-195304
Screenshot_20240509-1953041080×2400 128 KB

and either from there, or the app’s info page I get the full set of notification options

Screenshot_20240509-200745
Screenshot_20240509-2007451080×2400 162 KB

My app version is 1.30.1

I wonder if your phone has a skinned or otherwise modded version of Android? Maybe they have hidden some things, or have them in an odd place?

3 Likes
6

ok, i found it under the hamburger menu inside kde, then under persistent notifications, and then under notification categories at the bottom of that screen.

drilling deep.

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7

Thanks everyone for the replies and @claydoh for the screenshots that helped diagnose my problem!

The issue was that notification categories were disabled across all apps by default. I was able to enable them under Settings/Notifications/Advanced settings/Manage notification categories for each app.

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