Android 11 could let you easily see dismissed notifications

Google could finally give users a simple way to see recently dismissed notifications.

You probably know how frustrating it is to accidentally dismiss a notification in your drawer. Maybe it’s a message from someone important, or an alert from one of your apps, or any number of other things. You could spend a few minutes going through your apps to figure out what exactly the notification was about – or, if you’re like me, just give up and hope it wasn’t a big deal.

Read: Android 11 will help stop curved displays from breaking your apps

Now Android has long included a way to see dismissed notifications. But on Android 10, this Notification Log is effectively hidden from users, probably because it’s a half-baked and confusing feature.

As reported by XDA-Developers and 9to5Google, the first developer preview of Android 11 brings a couple of notable changes on this front. First, the Notification Log got a visual revamp to make it more user friendly. More importantly, there’s a new Notification History feature, that effectively replicates all the notifications you dismissed.

For now, the feature remains hidden. You can access it by using an app like Activity Launcher or by creating a shortcut to the Notification History activity on your screen using Nova Launcher or a similar launcher.

Notification History appears to be a work in progress. The UI seems incomplete, and it only shows the Recently Dismissed notifications – the Today section isn’t populated. That said, it seems like Google is planning to make it a user-visible feature that doesn’t require jumping through any hoops.

Because Android 11 Developer Preview 11 is only that, a developer preview, Google may or may not finish Notification History in the future iterations of Android 11. The company has been known to drop features available in betas from the stable launches. Sometimes the company brings these dropped features back though – see Bubbles or screen recording.

Make sure to check out the rest of our Android 11 coverage. We have a full Android 11 hands-on, an Android 11 features roundup , and much more.