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

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 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.