How to Turn On Your Email Notifications On Your Phone

How to make sure you receive alerts when you receive a new email. (And, an article with a lot of asterisks*). *This article has some real advice, it's not only satire & humor.)

If only we still lived in the 1950s and the only want to reach us was when we were at home and our phones rang. Loudly.

Q.
I signed up to be a Red Cross volunteer, but I never respond to the deployment e-mails fast enough and the spots get filled. How do I make my phone ring to notify me when I get an e-mail?

A. Well, dear friend, I wish the answer was the same for everyone, but UGH, it’s not. With different phones (hello Samsung, Apple & Pixel), different operating systems (Android and iOS being the two biggest ones, which side note, did you know that Android has roughly 70% of the global market share?!), and different software versions (and constantly changing user interfaces with each update), it’s damn near impossible for one instructional manual to successfully work for everyone.

Said simply, instruction manuals are often outdated. Which is why, dear friend, it’s time to start throwing out rule-based learning and instead try to understand principles. Or concepts. Or think critically. I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. I know, I know, that sounds sort-of awful. You just want to learn how to turn on your email notifications! Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of that proverb, you know the one I am talking about:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

(So terribly sorry women and non-gender affirming folks, we were excluded entirely from this proverb, and I am not sure what we’re supposed to do.)

Anyway, of course, I feel obliged to teach you how to fish.*

*I am still learning how to teach you how to fish.

PRINCIPLES* TO LIVE BY

*I am not sure these have anything to do with principles, but stick with me here.

1. Don’t ask for help. Obviously, if you are trying to learn how to do something, asking for help would completely negate all of your efforts. It’s best that you figure this out on your own.

2. If you want to change how your phone works, always start in Settings. I can’t give you what percentage of the time this will work, but I’m guessing it’s high. (This is actual advice. Settings is a good place to start.)

3. You are not going to break your technology (also real advice.) Tap around. Click on things. Try stuff out. It’s very unlikely you’ll cause anything to break. Just don’t do anything that you can’t undo, like delete all of your photos. Nobody wants that.

4. When you do seek out an instruction manual (because you will), remember that it could be for a different version than your current phone, so try and take in the conceptual ideas of what’s going on, not the literal step-by-step instruction, and always remember your end goal. (I threw in some big words here, like conceptual — don’t ask me what I meant and don’t spend too much time trying to figure it out, either, but this is actual advice; you gotta learn how to fish, remember?!)

Now that I’ve taught you how to fish, I’m sure you still are wondering how to turn on your email notifications so you don’t miss an important email, like A DEPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY TO VOLUNTEER FOR THE LA FIRES BECAUSE YOU’RE AN ALL STAR WHO WANTS TO HELP.

Your need is clearly is urgent. Honestly, you don’t have time to learn how to fish.

Here’s how you can do that —  (if you have an iPhone operating on iOS 18.1. SORRY.)

iPhone SE (110) iOS 18.1.1

1. From your Home Screen, tap your Settings icon.

2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap “Apps”.

3. Scroll to your email app, in this example, Gmail, and tap it. (But, you may need to tap Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL (Welcome, You’ve Got Mail.))

4. Tap Notifications.

5. Turn on “Allow Notifications”. At this point, options will appear.

6. Select the Alerts you’d like to receive by tapping the radio button (circle) below the options:

   1. Lock Screen: An alert will show up on your phone when it’s locked.

   2. Notification Center: An alert will show up on your screen when you unlock it and swipe down from the top to see your Notification Center.

   3. Banners: An alert will drop down from the top whenever your phone is unlocked.

7. If you’d like to be notified with a sound, toggle on the “Sounds” option by tapping the toggle on the right hand side so it moves to the right and turns green.

8. If you’d like to be notified with badges, toggle on the “Badges” option by tapping the toggle on the right hand side so it moves to the right and turns green.

(Oh and, if you’re wondering what iOS you have, try this:

1. Tap Settings

2. At the top, tap your name.

3. Scroll down until you find an icon of your phone and the name of it. For me, it says “iPhone (11o) This iPhone SE. Tap it!

4. There, you will find your model, version, phone number, serial number, and IMEI.

)

If you have an Android OS14 AKA Samsung One UI 6.1, you can do the following. (Yes! I thought of you Android users! All 70% of you!!)

Android 14/Samsung One UI 6.1

1. From your Home Screen, tap “Settings”.

2. Scroll down to Apps and tap it.

3. Tap Gmail (or whatever email application you’re using.)

4. Tap Notifications.

5. Turn on Allow.

6. Turn on which Alerts you’d like to receive:

   1. Sound and Vibration

   2. Silent Notifications. (These are notifications that will appear in your Notification Center but without sound.)

7. Choose your Notification Type(s)

   1. Lock Screen

   2. Badge

   3. Pop Up

8. Lock Screen Notifications

Now, if you’ve tried everything and you still can’t figure out how to turn on your e-mail notifications, just remember one thing: You are awesome and you have many, many talents in this world.

Until next time,

Your not-yet-helpful technology expert, Jenn