Notifications

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Learn about the technical aspects of notification delivery on device, including notification types, priorities, and notification center management.

Notifications Documentation

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Can iOS automatically launch an app or show a screen upon receiving a push notification (including critical alerts)?
Hi all, May I please ask for an official clarification or documentation reference from Apple regarding this scenario: Is it possible for an iOS app to automatically launch or open a specific screen when a push notification is received — while the app is in the background or terminated (killed) state? I understand that for most cases, user interaction (such as tapping the notification) is required before the app can show UI. However, I’d like to confirm whether this is also true for time-sensitive or critical alert notifications, including emergency use cases (e.g. public safety alerts). Specifically: Can a critical alert notification directly launch the app or present a view controller? Or is user interaction always required before the app can present any UI, even with the critical alert entitlement? I would appreciate if anyone — especially Apple staff or engineers — could share an official Apple document or statement that confirms this behavior. Thank you very much! (Use case context: I’m developing an emergency broadcast feature for a property management / tenant app.)
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150
Oct ’25
My app suddenly cannot receive push notifications
My app(The Smart Life app) is unable to receive push notifications. Please confirm whether APNs has received push notifications from Alibaba Cloud and whether APNs has successfully pushed notifications to the Smart Life app.The Smart Life app uses Alibaba Cloud's push notification service. The message ID pushed by Alibaba Cloud is: f7a02288-a995-47ed-b417-837461028f03 Current Symptom: Alibaba Cloud has reported that this message has been successfully pushed to APNs, but the smart life app has not received any push notifications. The feedback log from Alibaba Cloud shows that the APNs push was successful, but the smart life app did not receive any push. Because APNs do not have message receipts and Alibaba Cloud cannot obtain notification delivery status, it is recommended that I use the APNs channel message ID to submit a work order to Apple technical support for investigation. Note: All push notification permissions for the Smart Life app are enabled, and the Smart Life app is in the foreground when push notifications are sent.
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106
Sep ’25
Enabling voip in react native
Currently working on a dating app which needs voip for audio and video calls for ios. the voip notifications only comes to the app in active and inactive mode but doesnt wake the device in background or terminated mode. After debugging i noticed that com.apple.developer.voip entitlement wasnt included which i later added, trying to create a build i get the eas error that the entitlement wasnt added to the identifier capabilities. My issue now is that i can't seem to find the voip capability to check in the identifiers capabilities list for the bundle id.d
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119
Jun ’25
VoIP / PushKit notification failure on versions of iOS 18
We are trying to figure out a strange issue. Our app has not changed for at least 10 months but my devices and the QA tester device have all stopped receiving push/call notifications for twilio voip The twilio credential and apple voip services certificate are in date and valid It is pointing to the correct bundle id and topic (not changed configuration for years) token passed in to TwilioVoiceSDK.register() is retrieved from PKPushRegistry as per guide Running locally the Twilio Voice SDK successfully registers and retrieves APNs token What is interesting is if I log in with exactly the same client account on an iOS 18.5 device (and an older iPad) call notifications work perfectly (I have made sure all focus modes/dnd are off and notification settings are identical) The only changes myself and QA have made recently is minor iOS 18 version updates - 18.6.2 and 18.7.1 These now receive Invalid device token from APNs when Twilio attempts to create a call/voip notification for the user identity Our devices sometimes switch environments test/prod so I installed the app cleanly on a borrowed 18.6.2 device and got the exact same issue We have tested on these devices most of the year with no issues. I have been in touch with twilio support and added code to explicitly unregister and re register on an affected device to clear any bindings but it didn't help. Have apple made any changes in PushKit or token behaviour for later versions of iOS 18? Thanks
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201
Nov ’25
Clarification on APNs MDM Push Certificate per-customer requirement for MSP/multi-tenant MDM
Hello Apple Developer Community, We’re building an MDM product (SaaS, multi-tenant). I’d like clarification on the APNs MDM push certificate usage model for service providers (MSPs). Question: Is it acceptable for an MDM vendor to use a single APNs MDM push certificate owned by the vendor to manage devices for multiple, independent customer organizations? Or is it required/recommended that each customer (company) must obtain and use its own APNs MDM push certificate (issued under the customer’s Apple ID) for their tenant? Why we’re asking: We understand that many guides show the process where each customer logs into the Apple Push Certificates Portal with their own Apple ID, uploads a CSR provided by the MDM, and then renews yearly. Practically, for a small team and early-stage deployments, using one vendor-owned certificate across multiple tenants would be simpler. We want to ensure we’re not violating any policy, terms, or technical requirements (e.g., certificate ownership, topic binding, device token isolation, audit/compliance expectations). What we need from Apple (or authoritative sources): An official Apple document or policy that clearly states whether per-customer certificates are mandatory vs strongly recommended for MSP/multi-tenant MDMs. If per-customer is mandatory, please point to the relevant clause or section. If a vendor uses a single certificate for multiple organizations, what risks or consequences should we expect (e.g., compliance issues, supportability, potential program violations, off-boarding problems, etc.)? Context: We’re sending only MDM wake notifications (standard MDM flow). We understand certificates expire yearly and must be renewed with the same Apple ID to avoid device re-enrollment. We want to follow Apple’s best practices while keeping early operations manageable. Any guidance, links to official documentation, or clarification from Apple engineers/moderators would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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199
Oct ’25
Status of Notification Service Extension filtering entitlement
Hi Apple engineering team, I contacted Developer Support regarding the status of our entitlements request, and they recommended that I post here for visibility. It’s been just over two weeks since we submitted the request, and we haven’t received any updates yet. We understand these requests can take time, but it’s unclear what the typical timeline looks like or if there’s any way to check on the progress. Is there a way to get an update or better understand where we are in the process? We’re trying to plan our release and would really appreciate any guidance on what to expect. Thanks in advance for your help.
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134
May ’25
Notification coordination between iOS and watchOS is not working properly
Notification coordination between iOS and watchOS is not working properly watchOS and iOS try to coordinate between phone and watch notifications. The concept here is that if there is a main app and a companion app, they could both be sending a notification, then the notification would alert on both, which is a deviation from how notification mirroring is handled if there is an iOS app but no watch app. The watch waits for the iOS notification to fire so they can determine if this is the same notification that needs to be deduped, displayed on one device but not the other, or separate notifications to be displayed both. If there is no notification on the phone, the watch will timeout after 13 seconds and alert anyway. If you have an iOS companion app, the best solution to this is to send the same notification on both devices simultaneously, and ensuring the UNNotificationRequest.identifier matches on both notifications. This will let the systems determine how to handle the notification correctly and quickly, and the notification will alert right away. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/765669 According to the above article, "when a notification arrives on watchOS alone first, it coordinates with iOS," but in reality, it doesn't work properly. Detailed process of this phenomenon watchOS receives a notification. On watchOS, the notification is not immediately shown to the user. iOS receives a notification with the same UNNotificationRequest.identifier as in (1). The notification in (3) does not appear on either iOS or watchOS. However, the notification from (3) does appear in iOS Notification Center. Thirteen seconds after watchOS received the notification, the notification from (1) is shown to the user on watchOS. In the end, the iOS and watchOS notifications are not consolidated and each remains in its respective notification center. Up to (3) there are no issues. Starting with (4), both iOS and watchOS exhibit a lot of odd behavior. This phenomenon occurs with both local notifications and push notifications. When iOS receives the notification first, there is no problem. The notification for watch received later is processed appropriately, and the watchOS notification is not additionally displayed to the user. Expected proper process Same as above. Same as above. Same as above. The notification in (1) is integrated into the notification in (3). The notification in (3) is alerted to the user immediately. 2 sample projects to reproduce Only the main code is attached. Sample project1: local notifications Swift code for local notification app (iOS, watchOS) - App.swift.txt Sample project2: push notifications This sample project is implemented using Firebase Functions and Firebase Cloud Messaging. Swift code push notification app (iOS, watchOS) - App.swift.txt Server side JavaScript code for FirebaseFunction - index.js.txt Tested devices and OS This phenomenon occurred in both of the following patterns. Pattern 1 Xcode 26.0 iPhone 16 (iOS 26.0) Apple Watch series 10 (watchOS 26.0) Pattern 2 Xcode 16.4 iPhone 11 (iOS 18.6) Apple Watch SE 2nd gen (watchOS 11.6) Question Is this phenomenon a bug? Or is my understanding or implementation incorrect? Feedback Assistant number FB20339772
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182
Sep ’25
Significant increase in 410 "Unregistered" responses from APNs when sending push notifications.
We are observing a significant increase in 410 "Unregistered/ExpiredToken" responses from APNs when sending push notifications after 20 July. According to documentation, this indicates that the device token is no longer valid for the specified topic. However, the sudden spike raises questions about whether there have been any recent updates or changes to APNs' token invalidation logic. Could you please confirm: Whether there have been any recent updates in APNs behavior related to 410 responses? If there are best practices or recommendations for handling large volumes of token invalidations in order to detect uninstallations?
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228
Aug ’25
LiveActivity start via APNs not working
I am trying to issue the "start" APNs push notification to start a live activity for my iOS app. The notification appears to send correctly, there is no error message, but the live activity never appears for any of my users (users are in TestFlight). In addition to issuing the APNs commands from my server, I have also tried using the CloudKit Push Notification Console to manually generate a "start" notification. It submits correctly but the live activity never starts. I have also checked the Console app to watch the device logs and see if iOS is rejecting/throttling the live activity but I don't see any activity related to the start message at all. Here are some details: App bundle ID: `com.penzu.moodmoji` APNs topic: `com.penzu.moodmoji.push-type.liveactivity` APNs push type: `liveactivity` Recent apns-id: `7b633309-b7fd-4163-b620-776efa04f315` APNs payload: { "aps": { "timestamp": 1742651625, "event": "start", "content-state": { "totalDays": 7, "currentDay": 2, "progress": 0.29, "status": "ACTIVE", "reportReady": false }, "attributes-type": "GoalActivityAttributes", "attributes": { "totalDays": 7, "currentDay": 2, "progress": 0.29, "status": "ACTIVE", "reportReady": false }, "alert": { "title": "It's day 2!", "body": "Don't forget to record every time you feel anxious today." } } } I can confirm that LiveActivities started by the iOS app with ActivityKit work correctly, and the app does appear to be receiving pushToStartTokenUpdates: struct GoalActivityAttributes: ActivityAttributes, Sendable { struct ContentState: Codable & Hashable, Sendable { let totalDays: Int let currentDay: Int let progress: Double let status: String let reportReady: Bool } let goal: SimpleGoal } for await nextStartToken in Activity<GoalActivityAttributes>.pushToStartTokenUpdates { // send nextStartToken to server... } The app I'm testing with is in TestFlight, using the production APNs environment.
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152
Mar ’25
Inconsistent grouping of notifications
I'm sending push notifications to a notification extension, and within the extension setting the threadIdentifier to be the same. But I'm observing inconsistent grouping behaviour, and behaviour that changes over time. The general iPhone settings are to display notifications as a Stack, and the app settings are to show on lock screen, notification center and banners and the notification grouping is set to by app (changing it to automatic doesn't affect the behaviour below). Pushes are displayed on the lock screen grouped together, then if the device is roused and the screen swiped down to reveal the notification center then they are still grouped. So far so good. If the iphone is active then the notifications appear at the top of the screen, one by one, but in this case if there is a swipe down to reveal the notification center then the notifications are not grouped when displayed, but shown individually. But then if one waits a few minutes and then displays the notification center for a 2nd time, sometimes now they will be grouped, but sometimes not. Why are they not (always) being displayed as grouped in the notification center?
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94
Mar ’25
Push notifications don't deliver when device is idle on iOS 18.7 and 26.0
There's a list of bug reports: FB19778882 FB19813796 FB19852724 FB19767262 FB20378888 FB20379383 FB20394663 Me and many other users have issue with push notifications. To reproduce this you should do this steps: Lock iPhone and make it idle for 10+ minutes; Send any message from other device via third-party app that uses push notifications (WhatsApp, Telegram and etc.); After few attempts you can see, that messages don't deliver. They delivers immediately when I unlock iPhone or go to the app. This bug reproduces on iOS 18.7 and 27. As I think iPhone goes to deep sleep after 10+ minutes after it locked and don't get push notifications. I've tried everything: many of settings, DFU without backup, but nothing helps to resolve this issue. Pay attention, please, cause this bug is very annoying and present on iOS 18.7 (that is the last for many devices) and latest iOS 26. Thanks!
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476
Sep ’25
PushKit (VoIP) delivery issue — user’s device fails to receive VoIP pushes; logging in on that device suppresses VoIP pushes for all devices of that user
We are facing an issue where VoIP notifications are not delivered to a user's device. If we login with the user credentials on another device the VoIP notifications are being received, if he logs in on his device VoIP notifications are not being received anymore on all devices. So When the user logs in on the affected device, all devices on that account stop receiving VoIP pushes (including the affected one). Logging out on the affected device restores delivery to other devices. What could cause this issue? It's only happening for this user so the configuration and mobile app PushKit code is working as intended.
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171
Oct ’25
Limit on consecutive push notifications (normal and critical alerts)
Hi, We have a use case where our app needs to send repeated push notifications (both normal and critical alerts) to inform the user about a critical device state and grab their attention. Since iOS doesn’t allow us to schedule local notifications beyond 30 seconds, I need to send multiple pushes from the server side. My questions are: Is there any documented limit on how many push notifications can be sent back-to-back before Apple starts throttling or restricting them? Are critical alerts treated differently from normal notifications in terms of delivery restrictions or frequency limits? Is there a recommended approach for handling scenarios where repeated urgent notifications are necessary to keep the user informed? I want to make sure I’m following Apple’s guidelines and not risking rejection during review.
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111
Sep ’25
AWS SNS False Success Delivery
We operate a social network application, SportsYou with over 3 million monthly active users and are experiencing significant issues with push notification delivery through APNs. We have a large number of users reporting they are not receiving push notifications. Our infrastructure uses AWS SNS integrated with APNs to deliver notifications. However, AWS CloudWatch consistently reports successful delivery (Success response), even though users confirm they never received the notifications. Because we receive success responses from AWS SNS, our system does not attempt to recreate or refresh the device endpoints. This leaves us unable to detect or recover from these delivery failures automatically. This issue is widespread and inconsistent. It affects users across multiple variables including different iOS versions, different device models, and different versions of our application. We cannot identify a clear pattern that would help us isolate the root cause. With millions of active users, even a small percentage of delivery failures represents thousands of users experiencing a degraded service. This is significantly impacting user engagement and satisfaction. We need guidance on how to properly diagnose this issue and ensure reliable notification delivery to our users. Specifically, we'd like to understand why we're receiving success responses when notifications aren't being delivered, and what steps we can take to detect and prevent these failures.
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184
Oct ’25
Getting null data from App Store Server Notification
Hello Apple Support Team, We are using auto-renew plans in our app We have set the webhook URL in our App Store Connect account to get the Store server notification to get the auto renew data for an user The issue is when a user purchases any auto-renew plan at the auto-renew time, we are getting null data from the Apple side. We have printed the log's data to check what data are coming from the Apple webhook. we have attached our logs data please check it and let me know what can we do to resolve this
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115
Jun ’25
Provisioning Profile Missing com.apple.developer.push-notifications Entitlement Despite Correct Setup
Hi all, I’m running into an issue with provisioning profiles not including the com.apple.developer.push-notifications entitlement — even though everything seems to be configured correctly. Here's what I’ve done: Checked the App ID has Push Notifications enabled. I’ve clicked “Configure” and created a Production APNs certificate under the App ID. I’ve regenerated the provisioning profiles (Ad Hoc and App Store). I can see within the profiles within App Store Connect that the push notifications capability is listed I’ve downloaded and decoded the profiles using: security cms -D -i profile.mobileprovision &gt; decoded.plist But com.apple.developer.push-notifications is still missing under the &lt;key&gt;Entitlements&lt;/key&gt; block. This is causing issues because: When I submit the build to eas I receive this error from XCode: - Provisioning profile "*** Adhoc" doesn't include the com.apple.developer.push-notifications entitlement. Profile qualification is using entitlement definitions that may be out of date. Connect to network to update. (in target '***' from project '***') Refer to "Xcode Logs" below for additional, more detailed logs. To isolate the issue further I: Created a completely new App ID, enabling Push Notifications from the start. Created new APNs certificate. Generated new provisioning profiles with a valid distribution certificate. Still no push entitlement embedded in the profile. Question: Has anyone else encountered this issue where Push Notifications are enabled and configured, but the entitlement still fails to embed in the profile? Thanks in advance.
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164
Jun ’25
Only the last notification is being delivered
Good morning all! We are facing a specific case dealing with push notifications to iOS devices. In my scenario: I turn off my device's internet Send multiple push notifications via server using Firebase. I turned ON my device's internet again. I only see the last push notification I sent. This is an expected scenario? There is any documentation that supports this statement? Thank you all!
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380
Mar ’25