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Move notifications to top of lock screen?

S

Sunny Rio

Android Enthusiast
I just missed an important call this morning. There were 4 missed calls from them, but because my Android 11 phone was locked, it decided notifications should no longer be at the top of the screen where I was looking and saw nothing, no let's put them in the middle! How absurd.

I can't find any way (except Twitter which I have my doubts will reach anyone) to contact "Android" if that's a company. Any other way to give feedback?

I googled how to move notifications to the top and only got one result, for Iphones. Any way to do this on Android?
 
So you looked for an icon at the top and ignored the larger notification in the middle? I suspect that the simplest answer is to remember to look at the notifications in the middle of the screen, or else unlock it to look at the status bar.

As for changing it, all you can do is look in your system settings for anything related to lock screen or lock screen notifications (I can't be more specific because manufacturers change settings around and I don't know what phone you have, and don't have the same one anyway). If there is no setting then that's it. You could see whether it's any different with a third party lockscreen app: it's been best part of a decade since I tried one of those, but maybe there will be one that lets you choose the notification position. But if there is it will probably change the position on the lockscreen, but not reinstate it in the notification slide: I suspect that position may be a lockscreen app feature while the suppressing of the notification on the slide when the screen is locked is an operating system feature.

Trying to contact Google is very much a waste of time: even by the standards of large corporations they are bad at listening to customers. And even if you managed to persuade them that it was a bad idea and should be changed you'll need to buy an Android 14 device to benefit from that, as you won't get a retrospective change to an Android 11 device now.
 
It's not larger, it's a tiny symbol, just the same as the top one. Why would I see it there when I was looking at the top?

It is not simple to remember. I'm not some superhuman memory man like on magic shows. For example I get my mail through one letterbox in one door, I'd never remember to check two.

There doesn't seem to be an option to move it to the correct place, but I've managed to make it larger by adding details to it, like the time it occured.

I might try a 3rd party one one day, mainly to remove the irritating ability to make emergency calls. I detest anything to do with health and softy.

I don't understand what you mean about suppression and slides.

Don't they update older Androids all the time? I get updates appearing now and then, just like Windows does.
 
Doesn't bother me. Just like it doesn't bother those still using Windows 7 because they prefer it. It's not going to stop working, it just won't get improved. Up until a matter of months ago, I was using Android 7, a year before that Android 4. In fact this one was sold to me as Android 9. It then updated itself to 10, then 11. Not sure if it will ever go to 12, maybe not enough RAM, it only has 2GB.

When it breaks I'll be getting a Windows phone, I've had enough of this rubbish interface.
 
If it's only a little symbol are you talking about an "always on display" rather than a lockscreen? Those things do just have little symbols, and I've always thought they were inferior to the notification LEDs they replaced (I think Sony still have LEDs, but that's about it). I don't think there is anything you can do about them - I just turn them off completely.

My Android 13 lockscreen has the actual notifications on it, as they appear when you pull the slide down (except without the slide). A12 was the same. I don't remember A11 so well but have never had a lockscreen with just little symbols in the middle, which is why I suspect it's an AOD (aka "ambient display").
 
No it's not always on. When I'm not using the phone, I press the power button once, and the screen goes off. Uses less battery if it's not plugged in, and I can't do stuff by mistake in my pocket (oo er!) When I press the power button once to check messages, I see battery level, signal strength etc along the top as usual, and expected to see notifications there, just as I do when it's fully awake. But they moved notifications and only nonfictions, with the same small icons, to the middle of the screen, just under a large clock.

I adjusted the settings as I said above and now get a whole line which says what it is, like "text from Fred". A whole white bar across the screen can't be missed. Maybe that was the default and I turned it off when I was somewhere I didn't want others seeing what others were sending me.
 
Settings, lock screen, notifications gives two things to change:

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I think icons just shows a tiny symbol when I have a text for example.
Details says who the txt is from, and shows a whole bar.
Turning off hide content lets me see the actual body of the text.
 
On my device the options have different names, but the choices are a bar across the screen showing a content preview (e.g. email icon + app name, sender, subject, time, email account), a bar across the screen which contains an icon + app name and time but no content information, or nothing at all.

So it seems they've upgraded the icon to something more visible in more recent versions.
 
So your options are like mine but "icon" is "nothing"? You can actually be unable to tell if anything has occurred when you've locked it? That would be inconvenient having to unlock it just to check.

And are you telling me you have an older phone than me?!
 
No, newer - android 13. That's why I said "more recent versions".

I have the option of turning the notification off on the lockscreen, or I have the option of a bar with which identifies the app but doesn't show content, or a bar with full info. The middle one of those would do what the "little icon" you describe does, in that it tells you what apps have left notifications but doesn't show content, but is far more visible.

So the conclusion is that more recent phones have replaced the ineffective option your phone has with a more visible version. But if you don't have such an option already they aren't going to back-port it to a device that no longer gets android updates.
 
I thought "more visible" referred to my icon, since you said you don't have that option, but you instead have the option of nothing, I can't set it to nothing, I have icon, title, or full details.

So I have icon, or bar, or full details.
You have nothing, or bar, or full details.

That's not "more".
 
From your description your "bar" sounded like it had more details than the basic bar on my device, e.g. yours includes the sender's name, which is why I thought the bar on mine a better analogue to the icon on yours. But it seems you have an option that's more visible than the little icon, so you can choose that or not as you like. And Google clearly share your view that the little icon is no use because in the meanwhile they've got rid of it.
 
They should have moved it to the top, where it is when the screen's unlocked. I don't know about yours, but when my screen's unlocked, along the top is signal strength, battery etc, and a little icon saying I have a text, missed call etc. Why not just leave it up there when it's locked? Then we can look in one place.
 
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