Reducing notification overload for a quieter browsing experience in Chrome

We're constantly working to improve your browsing experience. To help you cut through the noise and reduce notification overload, we’re launching a new feature to automatically remove notification permission for sites you haven't interacted with recently. Today, Chrome’s Safety Check already does this for other permissions such as camera and location. The feature will be launched in Chrome on Android and desktop.

Data indicates that users frequently receive a high volume of notifications, resulting in minimal engagement and high disruption. Less than 1% of all notifications receive any interaction from users.

But notifications can be genuinely valuable and helpful. Therefore, this feature will only revoke permissions for sites when there is very low user engagement and a high volume of notifications being sent. This feature does not revoke notifications for any installed web apps.

Chrome will inform you when notification permissions are removed. If you prefer to keep getting notifications from a particular website, you can easily re-grant the permission at any time through Safety Check or alternatively by visiting the site and enabling notifications again. You can also choose to turn off the auto-revocation feature entirely.

We've already been testing this feature. Our test results show a significant reduction in notification overload with only a minimal change in total notification clicks. Our experiments also indicate that websites that send a lower volume of notifications are actually seeing an increase in clicks.

This launch is part of our ongoing commitment to user safety, privacy, and control. We believe this change will lead to a cleaner, more focused browsing experience, and we’ll continue to invest in ways to help you manage your online interactions and reduce distractions, so you can make the most of your time online. Posted by Archit Agarwal, Product Manager, Chrome