How can I programmatically open/close notifications in Android?

Question

I've searched everywhere, but can't find anything in the SDK or on Google on how to do this. I know it's possible because all the custom launchers are able to do it via a button press (LauncherPro, ADW, etc).

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can programmatically close the notification drawer by broadcasting an ACTION_CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS intent.

This causes "temporary system dialogs" to be dismissed. From the documentation:

Some examples of temporary system dialogs are the notification window-shade and the recent tasks dialog.

This doesn't require any permissions, and has apparently been available since Android 1.0.

The following code works for me on a Nexus 4 running Android 5.0:

Intent closeIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS);
context.sendBroadcast(closeIntent);

Answer 2

The answer from Ashwin works for Android versions below 4.2.2 (i.e. below version 17). In 4.2.2, the "expand" method was changed to "expandNotificationsPanel". If you don't use that method name for 4.2.2 and above, you will get a Null Pointer Exception. So the code should be:

Object sbservice = getSystemService( "statusbar" );
Class<?> statusbarManager = Class.forName( "android.app.StatusBarManager" );
Method showsb;
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 17) {
    showsb = statusbarManager.getMethod("expandNotificationsPanel");
}
else {
    showsb = statusbarManager.getMethod("expand");
}
showsb.invoke( sbservice );

And appropriate permission should be added to AndroidManifest.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR" />

Obviously, this is not part of the published API, so this is not guaranteed to work in the future and many people would advise against doing this.

Answer 3

Yes you can add this code to wherever you want it to execute

Object sbservice = getSystemService( "statusbar" );
Class<?> statusbarManager = Class.forName( "android.app.StatusBarManager" );
Method showsb = statusbarManager.getMethod( "expand" );
showsb.invoke( sbservice );

And add this permission

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR" />

Answer 4

How can I programmatically open/close notifications in Android?

What you want cannot be done using the Android SDK.

I know it's possible because all the cuustome launchers are able to do it via a button press (LauncherPro, ADW, etc).

All of the "custom launchers" are bypassing the SDK, using a variation on the technique that @Yoni Samlan proposed in another answer to your question. Things that are not part of the SDK can be removed by device manufacturers, replaced by the core Android team in future releases, etc.

I would argue that what you want should be possible via the SDK; otherwise, it really limits alternative home screen implementations. However, what you and I want does not count for all that much.

Answer 5

Sadly there's still no official API (requested here, please consider starring), but for now, you can use this code, which I've generalized from all of the answers I've found :

// based on https://gist.github.com/XinyueZ/7bad2c02be425b350b7f 
// requires permission: "android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR"
@SuppressLint("WrongConstant", "PrivateApi")
fun setExpandNotificationDrawer(context: Context, expand: Boolean) {
    try {
        val statusBarService = context.getSystemService("statusbar")
        val methodName =
                if (expand)
                    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 17) "expandNotificationsPanel" else "expand"
                else
                    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 17) "collapsePanels" else "collapse"
        val statusBarManager: Class<*> = Class.forName("android.app.StatusBarManager")
        val method: Method = statusBarManager.getMethod(methodName)
        method.invoke(statusBarService)
    } catch (e: Exception) {
        e.printStackTrace()
    }
}

EDIT: also adb command, which might be an alternative workaround (taken from here) :

collapse:

adb shell service call statusbar 2

expand:

adb shell service call statusbar 1

Answer 6

Christopher Orr's answer works great for closing the notification drawer.

You can use AccessibilityServices to programmatically show the notifications or quick settings by calling:

• performGlobalAction(GLOBAL_ACTION_NOTIFICATIONS)
• performGlobalAction(GLOBAL_ACTION_QUICK_SETTINGS)

Answer 7

Here's the showNotifications method from Android's Launcher:

private void showNotifications() {
    final StatusBarManager statusBar = (StatusBarManager) getSystemService(STATUS_BAR_SERVICE);
    if (statusBar != null) {
        statusBar.expand();
    }
}

(which, as Robby indicated, is the "statusbar" system service).