Back in August, Google took the wraps off the latest version of Android by announcing Android 8.0 Oreo. There were lots of rumors and speculations regarding the name of Android O. Names like Oatmeal Cookie, Octopus and Orellete were the ones we kept hearing until the day of announcement, however, as widely expected, Android O turned out to be Android Oreo.
Android 8.0 Oreo comes with many cool features like Picture-in-Picture (PiP) Mode, Notification Snoozing, Smart Text Selection and much more. One of them is Notification Dots. With Notification Dots, whenever you have any notification to be checked, you will see a dot on the icon of that particular app which is having the unchecked notification.
This isn’t entirely new as many custom Android skins come with notification badges. However, instead of dots, you get to see numbers on the app icon. For instance, if you have 10 messages on WhatsApp, then you will see the number display atop the WhatsApp icon. Having said that, with Android 8.0 Oreo, Google has added native support for notification dots. With notification dots, you will also be able to take a quick look at the notification by long-pressing on the app icon. Sounds cool? Well, here’s how you can enable Notifications Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo if they are disabled on your smartphone for some reason.
How to enable Notification Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo
Step 1: To enable Notifications Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo, head over to the Settings menu and then go to Apps & notifications > Notifications.
Step 2: Now in the Notifications sub-menu, you will see an option called ‘Allow notification dots‘ with a toggle button next to it. Well, just tap on that toggle button to enable Notification Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo.
This will enable Notification Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo for all the apps installed in your smartphone. If you don’t want to enable it for certain apps, or for that matter, only want certain apps to make use of Notification Dots, you can go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications menu and then tap on the app you want to enable/disable Notifications Dots for.
After tapping on the app name, you will see the ‘Allow notification dot‘ option. If the option is already turned on, it means the app will make use of the Notification Dots feature. However, if you don’t want the app to make use of this feature, you can just tap on the toggle button next to the ‘Allow notification dot’ option to turn it off.
Now whenever an app has a notification, it’s icon will show up a dot on it. What’s interesting is that the color of the notification dot will be adapted to match the app icon.
With the Notification Dots turned on, you will be able to quickly check the notification details by long-pressing on the app icon which will show you a preview. Not just that, you can also clear the notifications by swiping either left or right on that preview.
Moreover, the Notification Dots also work with folders. If you have multiple apps stacked inside a folder, and they have notifications, then that folder will also show up notification dots on it.
Having said that, even though Notification Dots is a native feature in Android 8.0 Oreo, it only works with the Pixel Launcher which means if you have any other phone apart from the Pixel or Pixel XL running Oreo, you will have to sideload the Pixel Launcher by downloading it from here (at your own risk).
We are attaching a video below for you to see how Notifications Dots work.
We hope you could enable Notification Dots in Android 8.0 Oreo after reading this article. For more, you can head over to our ‘How-To Guides‘ section.
