How to turn off iOS, Android notifications for Houseparty app

Noise complaints from rowdy neighbourhood parties are a thing of the pre-pandemic past, but now a different sort of house party is annoying us. Here’s what you can do about it.

In recent years it’s become a meme on social media to talk about how much you love cancelling plans, but now that none of us have any we’re starting to realise what a luxury that is.

In an attempt to recapture the feeling of being a human, people are turning to technology, hanging out with friends and having virtual “parties” on platforms like the Zoom video conferencing site also used by businesses and schools and the more fun-focused Houseparty app.

You can wave goodbye to those annoying notifications.

While most attendees to a real world house party are content to simply arrive at the party rather than walk around personally notifying everyone else of their presence, apps are far more extroverted when it comes to this.

It’s driven many on the Houseparty app to annoyance with constant notifications that another contact has come online, especially at a time when online is the only place to be.

House party notifications are a form of harassment I swear

— Toju²⁴ (@toju_lad) March 25, 2020

the houseparty notifications need to behave

— ivy (@ivyhare) March 28, 2020

Me when I get a notification from Houseparty every 2 seconds pic.twitter.com/T318kY70xI

— DJ SK 🇳🇬(Shaku King) (@DJ_SKMIX) March 26, 2020

Houseparty notifications every 5 minutes pic.twitter.com/ZEuXOjIENy

— Daniel Beattie (@beattie12345) March 28, 2020

House party notifications are worse than the iPhone alarm

— Danny commock (@Dannycommockx) March 29, 2020

I’m getting Houseparty notifications more than I breathe

— blondie bamba (@alynabeeh996) March 27, 2020

Best feature of House Party is sneaking into the house so no one gets a notification tbh pic.twitter.com/c9r422tIC7

— Max 🏳️‍🌈 (@max_tweedie) March 29, 2020

The polite thing to do is evidently to “sneak into the house” so you don’t annoy everyone else with a notification.

It’s also a good way to scope out the party before deciding whether or not you want to stay, the virtual equivalent of texting a friend who’s already there to see if it’s worth your time, not that any of us have anything better to do at the moment.

But you can’t count on everyone to do the polite thing and sneak into the Houseparty.

If you too have found yourself irritated by the needy app notifications here’s what you can do.

On iOS, you can easily turn off notifications or control how prominent they are through the settings app.

Just go to settings and scroll down to your list of installed apps. Find Houseparty and toggle whether you allow notifications.

Houseparty lets friends meet up virtually.

You can also decide whether you want banners for notifications to appear on your lock screen or only in the notification centre.

You can also swipe left on an annoying notification and tap “manage” to decide how many notifications you see.

On Android go into settings, tap on Apps & Notifications and select the app you want to turn off notifications for.

You can also tap and hold on a notification in the pulldown menu and select its settings from there.

In the Houseparty app, you can also click the face icon in the top left of the screen and pick which notifications you want to leave on or turn off from there.