Having WhatsApp notifications stay on your lock screen can be useful to quickly see new messages without having to unlock your phone every time. However, by default on some Android phones, WhatsApp notifications will disappear from the lock screen after a few seconds. The good news is there are a few ways to make sure WhatsApp notifications remain visible on your lock screen.
Why WhatsApp notifications disappear from lock screen
On many Android devices, notifications from various apps will automatically clear or disappear from the lock screen after a certain amount of time. This is an intended behavior to prevent too many notifications from piling up on your lock screen and cluttering things up.
For apps like WhatsApp where you likely get frequent notifications, having old messages stack up on your lock screen can look messy very quickly. So Android will clear them out after a few seconds or minutes, depending on your settings.
The problem is that this makes it harder to quickly glance at new WhatsApp notifications. If the message disappears after just a few seconds, you can easily miss it if you don’t unlock your phone right away.
Change lock screen notifications settings
The first thing to check is your general lock screen notifications settings on your Android device. Here you can control how long notifications remain visible on your lock screen before being cleared automatically.
To find these settings:
On Android 9 Pie or earlier:
1. Go to Settings > Apps & Notifications
2. Tap Notifications
3. Under “On the lock screen”, choose how long notifications should show
Some options are “Show alerts for 5 seconds” or “Show alerts until unlocked”.
On Android 10 or later:
1. Go to Settings > Apps & Notifications
2. Tap Notifications
3. Under “On the lock screen”, choose how long notifications should show
Options include “Don’t show notifications at all”, “Show alerts for 10 seconds”, or “Show alerts until unlocked”.
Generally, you’ll want to select the longest duration like “Show alerts until unlocked” if you want WhatsApp notifications to remain visible. However, even with this setting, some WhatsApp notifications may still disappear sometimes. So you’ll want to also check the next settings specific to WhatsApp.
Adjust WhatsApp notification settings
In addition to your general Android settings, you can also control how WhatsApp notification behave on your lock screen:
1. Open WhatsApp
2. Tap the 3-dot menu icon in the top right
3. Go to Settings > Notifications
4. Tap “Use high priority notifications” to on (green)
This will make WhatsApp notifications high priority, which overrides your general lock screen timeouts and keeps them visible until manually dismissed.
You can also customize other notification settings like sounds, vibrations, lights, etc from this screen.
Troubleshooting tips
If you’ve adjusted both your general lock screen settings and WhatsApp notification settings, but are still not getting WhatsApp notifications to persist on your lock screen, here are some other things to try:
– Restart your phone – Sometimes settings changes don’t take effect until a reboot.
– Check for app updates – Make sure WhatsApp is updated to the latest version from the Play Store. Recent updates may have improved notifications.
– Use a different default launcher – Some third-party launchers have issues with locking notifications. Try switching back to the default launcher that came with your device.
– Check notification access – Make sure WhatsApp has notification access allowed. Go to Settings > Apps & Notifications > Special app access > Notification access and check WhatsApp is enabled.
– Reset app preferences – As a last resort, you can go to Settings > Apps & Notifications and tap the 3-dot menu, choose Reset app preferences. This will reset settings for all apps including WhatsApp which may resolve any glitches.
Third-party apps to persist notifications
If you’ve tried all the usual troubleshooting but still can’t get persistent WhatsApp notifications on your lock screen, another option is to use a third-party app. There are a few apps on the Play Store designed specifically for keeping notifications visible.
Some popular options include:
Always On AMOLED – Creates a persistent notification that mimics your lock screen with notifications. WhatsApp messages will remain visible.
NotifyBuddy – Stops notifications from disappearing on your lock screen. Has options to customize duration and other preferences.
Noti Lock Screen – Similar concept of keeping notifications always visible with full customization settings.
These apps simply run in the background and override the default notification behavior of your Android OS. So they should be able to solve your issue of WhatsApp notifications disappearing from your lock screen.
Use notification LED if available
Some Android phones also have a notification LED light which blinks when you get new notifications. So even if WhatsApp notifications disappear from the lock screen, the blinking LED will alert you to check your phone for new messages.
Not all phones have this anymore, as it’s considered outdated, but if your device does just make sure notification LED is enabled:
1. Go to Settings > Apps & Notifications
2. Tap Notifications
3. Turn on “Flash notification light”
You can even customize the blinking pattern and LED color for WhatsApp notifications specifically.
While not as convenient as persistent lock screen notifications, having the LED blink on new messages can be a handy visual indicator.
Conclusion
To get your WhatsApp notifications to stop disappearing from your Android lock screen, first go through all the built-in notification settings both generally for the lock screen and specifically for WhatsApp. Enable high priority notifications for WhatsApp.
If that doesn’t work, try restarting your device, app updates, changing launchers, and resetting app preferences. As a last resort, consider a third party app from the Play Store dedicated to keeping notifications pinned on your lock screen.
And if your phone has a notification LED, enable it as a backup to at least alert you visually to new WhatsApp messages.
With the right settings configured, you should be able to keep your WhatsApp notifications persistently visible on your lock screen so you never miss an important message again.