Check for access to notifications using NotificationListenerService

Question

I'm using the >=4.3 NotificationListenerService to access notifications. On the first start, my app takes the user to the "Access Notifications" system panel, but I'd like to take the user there whenever the checkbox for my app in "Access Notifications" is disabled. I haven't found a isNotificationAccessEnabled()-method anywhere, but I definitely know that it's possible because apps like Krome do this, too.

Answer 1

Edit June 15th, 2016

I'm not sure which version of the support library this was added to, but it looks like this functionality is now built in. Simply use:

NotificationManagerCompat.getEnabledListenerPackages(context); (link to docs)

This returns a Set<String> that you can iterate through to find your package name. Note however that I haven't personally tested this. But it looks like it's probably preferred to use this in place of my old solution below.

---

Old Solution

This code is working for my app:

ContentResolver contentResolver = context.getContentResolver();
String enabledNotificationListeners = Settings.Secure.getString(contentResolver, "enabled_notification_listeners");
String packageName = context.getPackageName();

// check to see if the enabledNotificationListeners String contains our package name
if (enabledNotificationListeners == null || !enabledNotificationListeners.contains(packageName))
{
    // in this situation we know that the user has not granted the app the Notification access permission
    throw new Exception();
}
else
{
    doSomethingThatRequiresNotificationAccessPermission();
}

Typical values that I've seen for the enabledNotificationsListeners String look like this:

• User has given none of their apps Notification access permission
  • null or ""
• User has given one app Notification access permission
  • "com.woodblockwithoutco.remotecontrollerexample/com.woodblockwithoutco.remotecontrollerexample.RemoteControlService"
• User has given two apps Notification access permission
  • "com.scootrnova.android/com.scootrnova.android.ListenerService:com.woodblockwithoutco.remotecontrollerexample/com.woodblockwithoutco.remotecontrollerexample.RemoteControlService"

This implementation is very straightforward and works great :)

P.S. I got the idea to use the hardcoded "enabled_notification_listeners" String from this answer.

Answer 2

Starting with Android 8.1 (SDK 27) you can call isNotificationListenerAccessGranted on the NotificationManager. This is the correct API to use. Older Android versions should use getEnabledListenerPackages as a second best option. Relying on your listener callbacks can give incorrect results. See explanation below.

Im developer of Krome. What have I done to check if service is enabled is add public static variable that changes to true in onBind method and to false in unbind. That is how this service work.

Edit:

public static boolean isNotificationAccessEnabled = false;

@Override
public void onListenerConnected() {
    isNotificationAccessEnabled = true;
}

@Override
public void onListenerDisconnected() {
    isNotificationAccessEnabled = false;
}

Answer 3

Works well with slightly modified @Damians answer

public class NotifyListener extends NotificationListenerService{    
        public static boolean listnerConnected = false;
    @Override
        public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
            Log.d(name,"onBind Called");
            listnerConnected = true;
            return super.onBind(intent);
    }   

        @Override
        public void onDestroy()
        {       
            super.onDestroy();        
            Log.e("destroy", "called");
            listnerConnected = false;

        }
}

Answer 4

Starting with Android 8.1 (SDK 27) you can call isNotificationListenerAccessGranted on the NotificationManager. This is the correct API to use, not the one of the accepted answer. See explanation below.

Like shai tibber also already said the accepted answer is incorrect.

onListenerConnected() and onListenerDisconnect() can get called even when there is no NotificationListener access granted. So relying on this callbacks to set a boolean will give wrong results. And getEnabledListenerPackages(context‌​) will just return all the packages that have an enabled notification listener defined in there AndroidManifest (android:enabled=true). It's NOT directly related to the user access. The documentation states exactly that:

Get the set of packages that have an enabled notification listener component within them.