If the notifications on your Galaxy smartphone are all cluttered, you're not alone. Samsung's latest One UI 6.1 update has inadvertently impacted notification categories on some users' Galaxy devices, throwing their carefully curated alert settings out the window, Android Police reports. Fortunately, there is a fix.
Notification categories (what Google calls notification channels) are a feature that allows you to enable or disable specific types of notifications on an app-by-app basis. For example, you can choose to enable DM notifications from the app but disable all other types of alerts, including promotions, friend requests, breaking news, etc.
If you have a lot of apps on your smartphone and you've manually adjusted notification categories, you don't want that work to disappear overnight. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to some users with the One UI 6.1 update: In addition to adding new AI features like Circle Search and Live Translation, this new version of One UI also provides A new "Manage Notification Categories" has been added to the app settings , which allows you to turn the feature on and off on your Galaxy. This is fine in theory - more options are usually a good thing - but Samsung has apparently decided to turn this feature off by default in the latest update.
Therefore, users find that their notification category settings are deleted after the update, which means that all these notification types that they did not expect to see start disappearing. (Hello, friend request. Goodbye, sanity.)
Fortunately, there's an easy fix for this problem: turn the feature on. One UI 6.1 will reportedly remember your notification category settings even if you disable the feature, so if you turn the feature back on, you can always go back to how you set those options. So even though the option is disabled by default, a simple flip of the switch can bring it back online.
How to restore notification categories on One UI 6.1
To find this option, go to Settings > Notifications > Advanced settings . Scroll down and you'll find categories of notifications that manage each app . Turn it on and your previous notification category settings should be restored.
Looking for a Galaxy that can run One UI 6.1? Here is the full list of Galaxy smartphones compatible with the latest update:
Galaxy S24
Galaxy S24+
Galaxy S24 Ultra
Galaxy S23
Galaxy S23+
Galaxy S23 Ultra
Galaxy S23 FE
Galaxy Z Fold 5
Galaxy Z Flip 5
