How to show notifications on the Samsung lock screen

You have recently purchased a Samsung smartphone and are slowly learning how to use it in due time. In this regard, although you have understood how to use it for the basic functions, there is one that interests you a lot but that you have not yet had the opportunity to deepen: that of notifications on the lock screen.

Well, if that’s the case, don’t worry. In the course of this tutorial, in fact, I will explain how to show the notifications of the Samsung lock screen: by doing so, you can view the activities on your phone without always having to resort to unlocking the screen. On devices with the Always On Display feature, you can also show notifications even while the phone screen is off.

I bet you can’t wait to take full advantage of these features, right? Then make yourself comfortable and get ready to put into practice the instructions I’m about to show you below: at the end of the tutorial, you will surely have learned everything you need to add notifications to the lock screen of your Samsung smartphone. If everything is ready, all I have to do is wish you a good read.

Index

• Preliminary information
• How to show notifications on the Samsung lock screen
• How to show notifications on the Samsung Always On Display screen

Preliminary information

Before we actually show you how to display notifications on Samsung lock screen, there is a small preliminary step to take. I’m talking about turning on notifications of the apps you want to appear on your lock screen, otherwise turning on notifications on the lock screen will be completely useless.

Normally, application notifications are turned on by default. However, it may happen that you have been asked to deactivate them from your phone due to other apps that could have conflicted with them, or that you have deactivated them manually and now do not remember how to activate them again.

So if you need to activate app notifications, go to the Settings> Notifications menu of your device and proceed accordingly: for all the details of the case, I refer you to my special guide where I show you how to activate notifications.

Furthermore, some apps may need notifications to be activated directly within them and not just through the phone settings. For this reason, if you have problems with notifications appearing on the lock screen, I recommend that you also check that these are turned on for the applications whose notifications you want to appear on the lock screen of your phone.

After activating the notifications of the apps that interest you, you just have to activate them for the lock screen as well. Just keep reading this guide to find out how!

How to show notifications on the Samsung lock screen

If you are wondering how to see notifications on the Samsung lock screen, know that the steps to take are very simple. First you need to open the Settings: to do this, open the notification bar and press the gear icon.

After getting into the settings, scroll down until you find the Lock screen item and press it. From here you can see all the settings you can change on the lock screen, including notifications. To activate them without changing anything, just press the lever located to the right of the Notifications item.

If, on the other hand, you want to make changes to the notifications on the lock screen, press directly on the Notifications item. This will open the control panel of notifications on the lock screen, so that you can customize them to the maximum.

For example, you can decide how notifications are shown on the screen. If you select the Icon-only mode, only the icons of the applications that have pending notifications will be displayed on the screen. This option is useful when you prefer to have a cleaner lock screen, regardless of the number of notifications present.

In case you want the lock screen to be more complete then you can select the Details mode. This way you can see both the icon and the name of each application that has pending notifications, and it is very functional if you are not familiar with application icons.

Furthermore, if the application in question has several types of more structured notifications, for example the WhatsApp notification showing the number of messages and pending chats, it will be possible to see them in full in this mode.

In the latter mode it is also possible to decide the transparency of the writings. The more this increases, the more transparent the notification background is. Putting the slider to the maximum, the wallpaper will disappear completely, while putting it to the minimum, the wallpaper will have no transparency and therefore will cover the background of the lock screen.

In any case, I advise you not to increase the transparency too much, as depending on the background of the lock screen you have, you may have difficulty reading the contents of the notifications.

Another very useful feature, if you are trying to customize your lock screen notifications, is the one that allows you to hide the contents of them. By leaving this option disabled, you can view the content of the notifications on the screen simply by tapping on them.

By activating the function to hide the contents, however, on the lock screen it will be possible to display only the icons or the name of the application that has pending notifications. This feature is extremely useful when you are trying to protect your data from the people around you. To activate the function, just press the lever located to the right of the Hide content item.

How to show notifications on the Samsung Always On Display screen

In case you are not aware of it, you can also activate notifications on the Always On the Display screen, which is the screen that usually shows the clock while the phone screen is off (on supported models). This feature can also be very convenient, especially considering the fact that you can view any notifications without even having to touch the phone to unlock it.

The first step is to activate Always On Display mode, otherwise it will not be possible to activate notifications on the screen. To do this – if your smartphone is equipped with this feature -, open the notification bar and look for the icon called Always On Display, finally press it.

Alternatively, you can activate the Always On Display mode by going to the Settings of your phone and pressing the Lock screen item, as I showed you in the previous chapter. Then press on the lever located to the right of the Always On Display option and that’s it. Also in this case, moreover, you can customize various aspects of this screen by pressing directly on the Always On Display item.

Now that you have activated the Always On Display mode, press on the Notifications item and finally on the lever located to the right of the Show on Always On Display item.

You can now view notifications directly underneath the watch when you lock your phone, just like on the lock screen. The only difference between this and the Always On Display mode is that in the latter you can only view the notification icons and the content is hidden regardless.

In any case, the procedure to activate notifications, as you have seen, is very simple and within everyone’s reach. In case of second thoughts, of course, you can retrace your steps by deactivating the levers you activated previously.