Push Notifications

The Push Notifications API provides methods for registering a device to receive notifications from a server, along with processing received notifications and responding to them. In contrast, the Local Notifications API provides means for offline, local notification scheduling and processing.

Enabling Push Notifications Capabilites

On iOS you must enable Push Notifications Capabilities in your project to enable the Push Notifications plugin to work. To do so, go to the Capabilities section of the app project and switch the Push Notifications button from OFF to the ON position.

This change adds the push capabilites to the app and creates an entitlements file in the project.

On Android just download the app project's google-services.json file from the Firebase console, and place it in the projectName/android/app folder.

Push Notifications icon

On Android, the Push Notifications icon with the appropriate name should be added to the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<meta-data android:name="com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_icon" android:resource="@mipmap/push_icon_name" />

If no icon is specified Android will use the application icon, but push icon should be white pixels on a transparent backdrop. As the application icon is not usually like that, it will show a white square or circle. So it's recommended to provide the separate icon for Push Notifications.

Android Studio has an icon generator you can use to create your Push Notifications icon.

Disabling Push Notifications plugin

If you are not using Push Notifications in your project, when you submit the app to iTunes Connect, Apple will send you an email saying it has issues because of Missing Push Notification Entitlement. That happens because Capacitor includes the code for registering for push notifications and getting the token.

Apple sends that mail just to make sure you didn't make a mistake and forgot to enable Push Notifications Capabilities in your app, but can safely ignore it if you are not using the Push Notifications plugin.

In case you don't want to receive the mail, you can disable the Push Notifications plugin by removing USE_PUSH from Active Compilation Conditions in your project's Build Settings section.

Push notifications appearance in foreground

On iOS you can configure the way the push notifications are displayed when the app is in foreground by providing the presentationOptions in your capacitor.config.json as an Array of Strings you can combine.

Possible values are:

• badge: badge count on the app icon is updated (default value)
• sound: the device will ring/vibrate when the push notification is received
• alert: the push notification is displayed in a native dialog

An empty Array can be provided if none of the previous options are desired. pushNotificationReceived event will still be fired with the push notification information.

"plugins": {
  "PushNotifications": {
    "presentationOptions": ["badge", "sound", "alert"]
  }
}

• register()
• requestPermission()
• getDeliveredNotifications()
• removeDeliveredNotifications(...)
• removeAllDeliveredNotifications()
• createChannel(...)
• deleteChannel(...)
• listChannels()
• addListener(...)
• addListener(...)
• addListener(...)
• addListener(...)
• removeAllListeners()
• Interfaces

Example Guides

Using Push Notifications with Firebase in an Ionic Angular App

API

register()

register() => Promise<void>

Register the app to receive push notifications. Will trigger registration event with the push token or registrationError if there was some problem. Doesn't prompt the user for notification permissions, use requestPermission() first.

---

requestPermission()

requestPermission() => Promise<NotificationPermissionResponse>

On iOS it prompts the user to allow displaying notifications and return if the permission was granted or not. On Android there is no such prompt, so just return as granted.

Returns:

Promise<NotificationPermissionResponse>

---

getDeliveredNotifications()

getDeliveredNotifications() => Promise<PushNotificationDeliveredList>

Returns the notifications that are visible on the notifications screen.

Returns:

Promise<PushNotificationDeliveredList>

---

removeDeliveredNotifications(...)

removeDeliveredNotifications(delivered: PushNotificationDeliveredList) => Promise<void>

Removes the specified notifications from the notifications screen.

Param	Type	Description
delivered	PushNotificationDeliveredList	list of delivered notifications.

---

removeAllDeliveredNotifications()

removeAllDeliveredNotifications() => Promise<void>

Removes all the notifications from the notifications screen.

---

createChannel(...)

createChannel(channel: NotificationChannel) => Promise<void>

On Android O or newer (SDK 26+) creates a notification channel.

Param	Type	Description
channel	NotificationChannel	to create.

---

deleteChannel(...)

deleteChannel(channel: NotificationChannel) => Promise<void>

On Android O or newer (SDK 26+) deletes a notification channel.

Param	Type	Description
channel	NotificationChannel	to delete.

---

listChannels()

listChannels() => Promise<NotificationChannelList>

On Android O or newer (SDK 26+) list the available notification channels.

Returns:

Promise<NotificationChannelList>

---

addListener(...)

addListener(eventName: 'registration', listenerFunc: (token: PushNotificationToken) => void) => PluginListenerHandle

Event called when the push notification registration finished without problems. Provides the push notification token.

Param	Type	Description
eventName	"registration"	registration.
listenerFunc	(token: PushNotificationToken) => void	callback with the push token.

Returns:

PluginListenerHandle

---

addListener(...)

addListener(eventName: 'registrationError', listenerFunc: (error: any) => void) => PluginListenerHandle

Event called when the push notification registration finished with problems. Provides an error with the registration problem.

Param	Type	Description
eventName	"registrationError"	registrationError.
listenerFunc	(error: any) => void	callback with the registration error.

Returns:

PluginListenerHandle

---

addListener(...)

addListener(eventName: 'pushNotificationReceived', listenerFunc: (notification: PushNotification) => void) => PluginListenerHandle

Event called when the device receives a push notification.

Param	Type	Description
eventName	"pushNotificationReceived"	pushNotificationReceived.
listenerFunc	(notification: PushNotification) => void	callback with the received notification.

Returns:

PluginListenerHandle

---

addListener(...)

addListener(eventName: 'pushNotificationActionPerformed', listenerFunc: (notification: PushNotificationActionPerformed) => void) => PluginListenerHandle

Event called when an action is performed on a push notification.

Param	Type	Description
eventName	"pushNotificationActionPerformed"	pushNotificationActionPerformed.
listenerFunc	(notification: PushNotificationActionPerformed) => void	callback with the notification action.

Returns:

PluginListenerHandle

---

removeAllListeners()

removeAllListeners() => void

Remove all native listeners for this plugin.

---

Interfaces

NotificationPermissionResponse

Prop	Type
granted	boolean

PushNotificationDeliveredList

Prop	Type
notifications	PushNotification[]

PushNotification

Prop	Type	Description
title	string
subtitle	string
body	string
id	string
badge	number
notification	any
data	any
click_action	string
link	string
group	string	Android only: set the group identifier for notification grouping, like threadIdentifier on iOS.
groupSummary	boolean	Android only: designate this notification as the summary for a group (should be used with the group property).

NotificationChannel

Prop	Type
id	string
name	string
description	string
sound	string
importance	1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3
visibility	0 | 1 | -1
lights	boolean
lightColor	string
vibration	boolean

NotificationChannelList

Prop	Type
channels	NotificationChannel[]

PluginListenerHandle

Prop	Type
remove	() => void

PushNotificationToken

Prop	Type
value	string

PushNotificationActionPerformed

Prop	Type
actionId	string
inputValue	string
notification	PushNotification