How to Control App Notifications on the Fire Phone

By Dan Gookin

Notifications on the Amazon Fire smartphone aren’t generic. Each app produces its own notification, which can arrive in the form of a sound or banner or by making the phone vibrate. You can customize those notifications, which helps you discern between a new email message, a tweet, or a text message, for example.

To customize an app’s notifications, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings app.

  2. Choose Sounds & Notifications.

  3. Choose Manage Notifications.

    The App Notifications screen appears. You see a list of apps, each of which could potentially generate a notification.

  4. Choose an app.

    For example, Facebook, which can generate notifications based on comments, status updates, or new messages.

  5. Slide the master control by Notifications to the On position.

    Likewise, if you want to disable notifications for an app, slide the master control to the Off position.

  6. To activate banners, slide the master control by Banners to the On position.

    Banners are messages that briefly appear on top of the screen.

  7. To activate a notification sound, slide the master control by Sound to the On position.

  8. To have the phone vibrate on a notification, slide the master control by Vibration to the On position.

    As a suggestion, consider disabling the sound (see Step 7) but enabling vibration (refer to Step 8), which is a more stealthy way to be alerted.

All notifications use the same sound. To change the sound, follow Steps 1 through 3 and then tap the Sound item at the top of the App Notifications screen.

Some apps may let you control the sound they use for notifications. For example, in Facebook you can choose the App Settings command and then choose Notification Ringtone to set the annoying sound Facebook uses to flag a new update or message.