Every time I get a new Android phone, I disable all the heads up notifications. I find them very irritating. You can disable them per app notification but that takes forever. I don’t want any. Unfortunately, there is no way in the settings to disable them system wide. At least not that I know of.

Install adb#

First step is to install adb on your computer. Yes, you need a computer to do this. You can get it from here.

Turn on developer options#

Now you have to enable developer options on your phone:

  • Got to your phone settings
  • Scroll down and open About Phone
  • Scroll down and tab on the Build number. You might have to enter the pin or password you set

Enable wireless debugging#

Next we will need to enable wireless debugging. Previous version needed root or that you connect first via USB. It’s nice that this is no longer necessary.

  • Got to phone settings
  • Scroll down and open System
  • Scroll down and open Developer options
  • Scroll down and toggle Wireless debugging on (tap the toggle)
  • Confirm by selecting Allow

Pair adb with your phone#

I assume you are still in the developer options on your phone

  • Tap on Wireless debugging to get into the settings for wireless debugging. Don’t toggle, just tap on it itself.
  • Select Pair device with pairing code

It will show you a code and IP address and Port. Use the port on this screen, not the one from the previous screen. On you laptop execute

adb pair ip:port

Give it the code it displays. It should tell you

Successfully paired to ....

and the window on your phone closes. On the bottom of that screen you should see now a paired device

Change the heads up notification setting#

On your laptop, you can now connect to your phone, check the setting and change it. For the connect, you will now have to use the ip and port that is displayed on this screen. It will be a different port. That port is different every time you connect again, so make sure you actually check.

First connect

adb connect ip:port

It should say that you are connected, but you can check also with

adb devices

Now lets see what the current setting is. This should return 1.

adb shell settings get global heads_up_notifications_enabled

Change the setting, by giving it a 0

adb shell settings get global heads_up_notifications_enabled 0

Check that it was actually changed

adb shell settings get global heads_up_notifications_enabled

Finally, disconnect from your phone

adb disconnect

Disable wireless debugging#

As a final step, toggle the Wireless debugging off