How to Customize Gmail Notifications for Android

Gmail for Android is a great way to check your Gmail while you’re out and about. It’s fast, dependable, and keeps you in the know while you’re travelling or otherwise away from the computer. Many people will simply set up their Google accounts with Gmail and leave it on its default options, which is a perfectly valid means of using it.

Did you know, however, you can make Gmail for Android notify you with different sounds for each account? Or that you can set custom notifications for each label? Here’s how to customize your Gmail notifications in Android.

Changing the Notification Sound

If you’re a little tired of your default notification noise, you can change it very easily. Open the Gmail app and press the three bars at the top-left. Then, scroll down to “Settings” and tap it.

Select the email address you use from the list that appears. Scroll down to “Inbox Notifications,” tap it, then tap “Sound” and change the notification to a sound you find more pleasing.

Setting a Custom Sound for Each Address

Before we move on, let’s take a second look at what we just did. Namely, the fact that we selected an individual email address to change its notifications. If you put two and two together, you’ll realise that Gmail handles the notification of each address separately. This means you can set a different sound for each email address you have connected to Gmail for Android, so you know which address got an email from the tone alone.

To set a custom sound for each address, simply set up a sound as you did above for one address. Then, keep tapping the backward arrow at the top left until you return to the email list. Tap another address and repeat the above process to set a different sound for each address on your phone.

Setting a Custom Sound for Each Label

Perhaps you’re not a fan of having multiple email addresses rattling around. Perhaps you have the one email address and an intricate labelling system to keep everything sorted. If you love the labels, you can set it up so each label has its own individual tone. Again, this will allow you to identify what kind of email is coming in by the notification sound alone.

To do this, select the email you want to customize as above. Then, scroll down to “Manage labels” and tap it.

You’ll see a list of labels on your account. There’s a chance that only Inbox and Sent have notification settings set up, and everything else is set to “Not synced.” If this is the case for you, don’t worry – we can fix that!

To start, tap the label you want to customize the settings for. If you’re already syncing this label, you should see all the notification options available to you. If you see the error message “Sync messages for this label to enable notifications,” then tap the “Sync messages” button at the top. Choose if you want to sync all emails or only those from the last thirty days. Once done, you can set up notifications as normal.

Setting Notifications for “High Priority” Emails Only

If you have preferences set up that mark specific emails as high priority, you can tell Gmail to notify you only when one of these emails comes in. To set this up, select the email you want to apply this option to as above, then select “Notifications.” It should be set to “All.”

Choose “High priority only.”

Now you’ll only be notified when a high priority email comes in.

Nicer Notifications

While Gmail works perfectly fine if left with its default settings, you can add an extra flair to your alerts. This allows you to identify the email address and/or the label of the oncoming email by its alert tone. Now you know how to set Gmail up for smarter notifications.

Does this make life easier for you? Let us know below!