Having notification icons in the status bar is one of Android’s advantages. That is not something iOS offers, and it’s a really neat feature to have. You can always glance at the status bar to see if you have unread notifications, and see from which apps at the same time. Why would you want to give that up, right? Well, in case you do want to, for some reason, in this article we’ll show you how to hide notification icons from the status bar.
We’ll use stock Android to show you how to do it. In this particular case, we’re using Android 11 that runs on the Google Pixel 4a handset. Below you’ll find the entire procedure accompanied by screenshots, so that you can do it step-by-step while following along. That’s basically it, let’s get started.
How to hide notification icons from the status bar on Android
The first thing you’ll need to do is access your phone’s settings. You can do that either by pulling down the notification shade, but considering that the location of that icon is different from one manufacturer to the next, we’ll access the Settings in a more common way. Swipe from the bottom to open your app tray, and find the Settings icon.
Once you enter the Settings, located the “Apps & Notifications” options, or just “Notifications”, as it may be presented on some other devices.
When you enter the “Apps & Notifications” submenu, you’ll see your most recently-used apps. The app you want to remove an icon for is amongst them, tap it, if not, open a full list of apps installed on your smartphone.
Once you’re on the full list, find the app you want to minimize notifications for. In our case, we chose Facebook Messenger. Tap the app.
Once you’re in the app settings, you’ll notice the “Notifications” submenu. Open it.
There you’ll see a ton of notification options on a system level. You can basically choose to minimize status bar notifications for one particular type of notification. So, for example, for chats and calls. That’s what we’ve decided to do, in this example.
Once you’re in that menu, you’ll see the “Silent” option. Select it.
Once you do that, a new option will open, it’s called “Minimize”. Flip the switch next to it.
There you have it. The notification icon will no longer be visible in the status bar, but it will be visible in the “Silent” section of the notification shade. You can see how that looks in the image provided below.