Mobile notifications

You can customize whether stream messages, direct messages and mentions trigger notifications in Zulip's Android and iOS apps.

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Personal settings.

  3. On the left, click Notifications.

  4. Toggle the checkboxes for Streams and DMs, mentions, and alerts in the Mobile column of the Notification triggers table.

Mobile notifications while online

You can customize whether or not Zulip will send mobile push notifications while you are actively using one of the Zulip apps.

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Personal settings.

  3. On the left, click Notifications.

  4. Under Mobile message notifications, toggle Send mobile notifications even if I'm online, as desired.

Testing mobile notifications

For users on Zulip Cloud and Zulip Server 8.0+

Follow these instructions to check the Zulip version for your organization.

To verify that mobile notifications are working as desired, you can send yourself a test notification from the Zulip mobile app. If you belong to more than one Zulip organization, you can separately test notifications for each account.

  1. Download and install the Zulip mobile app if you have not done so already.

  2. Log in to the account you want to test.

  3. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  4. Tap Settings.

  5. Tap Notifications.

  6. Tap Send a test notification. If notifications are working, you will receive a Test notification.

If you see a banner indicating that notifications have not been enabled for your Zulip server, try logging out of your account and logging in again. This will help if notifications were enabled very recently.

For users on older Zulip servers

Follow these instructions to check the Zulip version for your organization.

Start by configuring your notifications settings to make it easy to trigger a notification.

  1. Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.

  2. Select Personal settings.

  3. On the left, click Notifications.

  4. In the Mobile column of the Notification triggers table, make sure the DMs, mentions, and alerts checkbox is checked.

  5. Under Mobile message notifications, make sure the Send mobile notifications even if I'm online checkbox is checked.

Next, test Zulip push notifications on your mobile device.

  1. Download and install the Zulip mobile app if you have not done so already.

  2. If your Zulip organization is self-hosted (not at *.zulipchat.com), check whether push notifications have been set up. If they were set up recently, you will need to log out of your account.

  3. Log in to the account you want to test.

  4. Ask another user (not yourself) to send you a direct message. You should see a Zulip message notification in the notifications area on your device.

Troubleshooting mobile notifications

Checking your device settings

Some Android vendors have added extra device-level settings that can impact the delivery of mobile notifications to apps like Zulip. If you're having issues with Zulip notifications on your Android phone, we recommend Signal's excellent troubleshooting guide, which explains the notification settings for many popular Android vendors.

Enabling push notifications for self-hosted servers

These instructions do not apply to Zulip Cloud organizations (*.zulipchat.com).

To enable push notifications for your organization, your server administrator will need to register your Zulip server with the Zulip mobile push notification service.

Check whether notifications have been set up on your Zulip server

  1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Notifications. If notifications have not been set up, you will see a banner that indicates this.

Contacting Zulip support

If you are still having trouble with your push notifications, you can send an email to Zulip support. Please be sure to include the troubleshooting data provided by the mobile app.

  1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Notifications.

  4. Tap Troubleshooting.

  5. Use the Copy to clipboard button or the Email support@zulip.com button to email the troubleshooting data to the Zulip support team.