PC Advisor

Feature: Android Marshmallow tips and tricks
you’ll receive a notification if someone calls
you a second time within a 15-minute period,
regardless of whether notifications from that
person receive priority status.
Downtime
If you want to allow all notification alerts
through most of the time, but want to limit
alerts during certain hours, Downtime is for
you. During Downtime hours, you’ll only be
alerted to priority interruptions; your phone
will receive all other notifications silently.
They’ll be there, waiting for you when you
wake up, but your phone will not light up
the screen, make a noise, or vibrate.
If you want to use Downtime, you first
need to choose the days of the week
and times you want to set as notification
quiet hours. Go to Settings > Sound and
notification > Do not disturb > Automatic
rules. Android Marshmallow provides presets
you can use for weekends and weeknights,
and a preset option for managing
notifications during calendar events.
Start by tapping any of these three
options – for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll
tap Weekend. Next, toggle the on/off switch
to the ‘on’ position. Select the Days you
want the preset to apply to, then set a Start
time and End time. Finally, select the kinds
of alerts you’d like to allow through. You
can choose between Alarms only (allows
alarms to sound but silences all other
notifications), Priority only (allows only
priority notifications), or Total silence (which
mutes all notifications).
You can set up your own rules if you want.
This might come in handy if you don’t
want to be disturbed while you’re at work
Take a peek at the Event preset as
well, and choose whether you want to
silence notifications from going off during
events listed on your calendar – useful for
preventing your phone from going off in
the middle of a staff meetings. Switch the
rule on, select the calendar and reply status
you want it to use, then choose what kind of
notifications you want to receive.
You can create additional rules for
notifications as well. For example, you can
set one to allow only priority notifications
while you’re at the office. Tap Add rule, enter
a name, choose whether you want a Time
You can bestow priority status on to
notifications from any app. You can also
silence all notifications from a given app
from sending notifications entirely, or to
mark notifications from certain apps as
priority notifications.
First, head back to Settings > Sound &
notification. Next, scroll to the bottom and
tap App notifications, then tap on the app
for which you want to adjust notification
settings. Toggle the Block all slider to the ‘on’
position to stop receiving notifications from
that app. Toggle the Treat as Priority slider
to ‘on’ if you want notifications from that app
to be considered Priority notifications.
While you’re here, you can toggle whether
you want to view the larger ‘heads-up’
Marshmallow builds on Lollipop’s Priority Notifications
and Downtime features, and gives these notification
management tools a new umbrella name: Do Not Disturb
Setting quiet hours for weekends
rule (you enter specific times and dates)
or an Event rule (one based on calendar
events), then tap OK. At this point, you can
set up your new rule. You can delete a rule
by tapping its name, then tapping the trash
can icon in the upper right corner. You can
also choose to temporarily stop observing a
rule by toggling the on/off switch to ‘off’.
App notifications
Android Marshmallow, like Lollipop before
it, also allows you to choose to block apps
notifications for the app in question using
the Allow peeking setting.
You can also get to this screen any
time an app’s notification appears by
pressing and holding on the notification
until you see the little info button (it looks
like a lowercase ‘i’ in a circle) appear.
Tap on that, and you’ll go straight to the
notification settings for that app.
Once you’re done, exit the Settings
app and enjoy your newfound mastery of
Android Marshmallow’s notification system.
February 2016 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features 105