Notifications

Overview

MeshCore Open provides both system notifications (push-style OS alerts) and in-app unread badges to inform users of new activity.

Notification Types

1. Direct Message Notifications

• Triggered when: A new incoming message arrives from a Chat or Room contact
• Title: Contact’s name
• Body: Message text (reactions show “Reacted [emoji]”, GIFs show “Sent a GIF”)
• Priority: High
• Android channel: messages

2. Channel Message Notifications

• Triggered when: A new message arrives on a non-muted channel
• Title: Channel name (or “Channel N” if unnamed)
• Body: "<senderName>: <message text>"
• Priority: High
• Android channel: channel_messages

3. Advertisement Notifications

• Triggered when: A new node is discovered on the mesh for the first time
• Title: “New [type] discovered” (e.g., “New chat node discovered”)
• Body: Contact’s name
• Priority: Default
• Android channel: adverts

4. Background Service Notification (Android Only)

• A persistent low-priority notification: “MeshCore running — Keeping BLE connected”
• Required by Android for foreground services to keep BLE alive in the background
• Tap to re-launch the app
• Does not auto-start on reboot — the user must re-open the app manually after a phone restart

Notification Tap Behavior

Tapping a notification currently re-launches the app at the root route. It does not navigate directly to the relevant chat or channel.

In-App Unread Badges

Red numeric badges appear throughout the UI:

• Contacts list: Each contact row shows a red pill badge (e.g., “3”) for unread messages
• Channels list: Each channel row shows an unread badge
• Chat screen subtitle: Shows unread count inline
• Badges cap at “99+” for display

How Unread Counts Work

• Stored per contact (by public key) and per channel, scoped to the connected device’s identity (first 10 hex characters of its public key). Switching between different radios gives each its own independent unread state
• Suppressed when viewing: Opening a chat resets the count to 0 and cancels the OS notification
• Ignored for: Outgoing messages, CLI messages, and repeater contacts
• Debounced writes (500ms) to avoid excessive storage I/O during message bursts

Notification Settings

Access via App Settings → Notifications:

Setting	Default	Description
Enable Notifications	On	Master toggle; requests OS permission when turned on
Message Notifications	On	DM alerts (greyed out if master is off)
Channel Message Notifications	On	Channel alerts (greyed out if master is off)
Advertisement Notifications	On	New node alerts (greyed out if master is off)

Per-Channel Muting

Long-press a channel in the channels list → “Mute channel” / “Unmute channel”. Muted channels do not generate OS notifications.

There is no per-contact muting.

Rate Limiting

The notification system prevents notification storms:

• Minimum interval: 3 seconds between individual notifications
• Batch window: If multiple notifications arrive within 5 seconds, they are combined into a single summary notification on a fourth Android channel (batch_summary): “MeshCore Activity — 2 messages, 1 channel message, 3 new nodes”. Note: batch summaries are Android-only; on Apple platforms individual notifications are shown

Notification Clearing

• Opening a contact chat: Cancels the OS notification and resets unread count
• Opening a channel: Cancels the channel notification and resets unread count
• Opening Contacts screen: Cancels all advertisement notifications

Platform Support

Platform	Message Notifs	Badge	Background Service
Android	Yes	Via notification number	Yes (foreground service)
iOS	Yes	Yes (app badge)	No
macOS	Yes	Yes	No
Windows	Yes	No	No
Linux	Yes (if D-Bus available)	No	No