Are your iPhone 13 notifications not working as you expect? Here’s how to check whether you’ve set them up correctly, how to troubleshoot software problems, and understand what else could be wrong.
Frequently missing important texts, emails, reminders, or other updates is annoying and could cause major issues if you miss critical communication. Sometimes, you might not even get notifications when your iPhone is right in your hands.
Thankfully, there are many things you can do to get your notifications back to normal. If your iPhone 13 notifications are not working, here are some fixes to try.
Note: information in this article applied to iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
How to fix notifications not working on iPhone 13
1. Ensure Notifications Are Enabled
iPhone Notifications are enabled on a per-app basis. Each app must ask permission to display notifications, which you then grant via a pop-up. Sometimes you may deny permission by mistake, and other times an app may never request the required permission causing them to not appear.
You can rectify this behavior and ensure that notifications are enabled (or disabled, if you’d rather) under Settings > Notifications. Scroll down to the app in question then enable “Allow Notifications” and make sure alerts are enabled wherever you want them: on your lock screen, in the Notification Center, and as drop-down banners at the top of the screen.
You choose between a temporary or permanent banner style, the latter of which requires that you dismiss it manually. This can be handy if you don’t want to miss a notification from a particular app. You can also enable or disable “Notification Grouping” which gathers similar notifications together into an expandable stack.
2. Check Focus Mode
Focus silences calls, notifications, and all types of alerts (except alarms) while enable. When notifications don’t show up on your iPhone 13, it’s possible that you (or someone else—your kids, maybe) enabled Focus by accident.
Focus mode can be found in the Control Center by swiping down from the top-right of your screen. Tap and “Focus” to see the different modes available to you: Do Not Disturb, Personal, Work, and Sleep.
These modes can interfere with notification delivery, so make sure to turn them off if you want to receive all notifications. If you find Focus mode useful when working or studying but would prefer to whitelist certain contacts and apps, head to Settings > Focus and set up your desired mode.
This allows you to reap the benefits of disabling distracting notifications from social media or games, while still being able to message or receive calls from friends and family.
3. Disable Notification Summary
Notification Summary is a feature that bundles together “non-urgent” notifications and delivers them as a summary at more convenient times of your choosing. You won’t see certain notifications immediately with this mode enabled, but you’ll still receive calls and messages.
Your iPhone will suggest apps that are particularly heavy on notifications when you first set the feature up. You can disable or reconfigure the feature under Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary.
4. Restart Your iPhone
If everything seems right in the Settings > Notification menu then it’s possible a software problem may be to blame. Try restarting your iPhone to see if this solves the problem. To do this: go to settings > general > shut down.
5. Unmute Your iPhone for Notification Sounds
If you’re seeing notifications but not hearing them, your iPhone 13 is likely muted. You can unmute your iPhone using the toggle switch on the left side of the device (if you’re looking at it in portrait mode, face-on).
The volume of incoming notifications is determined by your ringer volume. You can change this using the slider under Settings > Sounds & Haptics, and modify the default alert sounds for notifications like text messages, new mail, and reminders.
It’s also important to make sure “Sounds” is enabled under Settings > Notifications for any app that you want to sound an alert (this will be on by default).
6. Not Receiving Notifications From A Specific App?
Are iPhone 13 notifications not working for only one app? The app or service you’re using could be to blame for the issue. This could be caused by a software bug locally on your device, or by an outage affecting the service in particular. You can try killing the app and starting it again on your iPhone to see if that helps.
You can also check for any updates the app may have pending by launching the App Store, tapping your user icon, then scrolling down to the updates section. Tap “Update” next to an app to download and apply the update immediately. If the problem persists, you can delete the app then download it again from the App Store to see if that helps.
If you’re receiving some app notifications but not everything, the way you’ve configured notifications inside the app could be to blame. Some apps, like Twitter, allow you to configure exactly what notifications you want to see. For example, you can see every tweet from certain accounts while excluding mentions or direct messages.
You will need to dig through the app’s settings to change how notifications are set up, and each app will approach this slightly differently.
If you’re using the default Mail app for iOS you won’t get push notifications for a standard Gmail account. This is because Google limits this functionality to the Gmail iPhone app. If you value immediate alerts for your Google email account, this is the app you’ll need to use.
You can set the “fetch” period at which the iOS Mail app checks for new mail under Settings > Mail > Accounts.
7. Check Your Wi-Fi & Cellular Connection
If you don’t have an internet connection, your iPhone 13 won’t receive notifications.
First, check to see if your iPhone is connected to a Wi-Fi network by opening the Settings app and tapping Wi-Fi. Make sure the switch next to Wi-Fi is turned on.
If you see a check mark next to the name of your Wi-Fi network at the top of this menu, your iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi. If you’re not connected to a Wi-Fi network, tap on the one you want to connect to under Choose A Network…
You can quickly check to see if Cellular is turned on by opening Control Center and looking at the Cellular button. If the button is green, Cellular is turned on!
8. Reset All Settings
Still not receiving notifications on your iPhone 13 after all the above fixes? At this point, you should try resetting your device’s settings. Doing this will restore your iPhone’s notification preferences to the defaults, hopefully fixing whatever is affecting notification delivery.
Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings. Type in your iPhone’s passcode and select Reset All Settings on the prompt.
Keep in mind that resetting your iPhone’s settings puts all options back to the default. This means you’ll have to connect to Wi-Fi networks again, re-configure Bluetooth devices, adjust your privacy settings, and similar. However, your data isn’t affected by this.
9. Contact Apple Support
If you are still not getting notifications on iPhone 13 after executing these fixes, you might have to contact Apple Support. In most cases, notifications aren’t working on your iPhone 13 because of a software issue or misconfigured setting. However, there’s an incredibly small chance that the antenna which connects your iPhone to Wi-Fi and cellular networks is broken, especially if you’ve been having trouble recently connecting your iPhone to wireless networks.
Notifications not working on iPhone 13: fixed
Chances are that at least one of the fixes mentioned above will resolve your iPhone 13 notification issues. It’s more than likely an accidental setting blocking the notifications than a full-blown problem.
If you still don’t get notifications after executing these fixes, you might have to factory reset your iPhone.
See also: 30 Best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Tips and Tricks