notification_channel_manager

An Android plugin to manage (CRUD) NotificationChannels and NotificationChannelGroups.

Notification channels are how Android lets users control an app's notifications per category (sound, vibration, importance, …) from the system settings. This plugin gives you the full lifecycle from Dart: create channels and groups with all their options, read them back exactly as Android stored them, update what Android allows updating, and delete them.

Requirements

Android 8.0 (API 26) or above at runtime — on older versions every call is a no-op (nothing is thrown; reads return null/empty).
minSdkVersion 24 or above, Dart 3.

This is an Android-only plugin; there is no iOS equivalent to notification channels.

Usage

Create a channel

import 'package:notification_channel_manager/notification_channel_manager.dart';

await NotificationChannelManager.createChannel(const NotificationChannel(
  id: 'urgent_alerts',
  name: 'Urgent alerts',
  description: 'Time-critical alerts that need your attention',
  importance: NotificationChannelImportance.high,
));

createChannel returns the channel as Android stored it — Android fills in defaults (like the system notification sound) and may clamp values, so the returned object can differ from what you passed in.

Create a channel with all options

final channel = await NotificationChannelManager.createChannel(NotificationChannel(
  id: 'incoming_calls',
  name: 'Incoming calls',
  description: 'Ringing for incoming calls',
  importance: NotificationChannelImportance.high,
  groupId: 'calls',                    // group is auto-created if it doesn't exist
  canShowBadge: true,
  shouldShowLights: true,
  lightColor: LightColor.red,
  shouldVibrate: true,
  vibrationPattern: Uint64List.fromList([0, 1000, 500, 1000]),
  sound: RawNotificationSound(
    fileName: 'ringtone',              // res/raw/ringtone.mp3 in your app
    packageName: 'com.example.app',
  ),
));

Groups

// Create or update (the native call is an upsert):
await NotificationChannelManager.upsertGroup(const NotificationChannelGroup(
  id: 'calls',
  name: 'Calls',
  description: 'Everything call-related', // visible on API 28+ only
));

// Read back, populated with their channels:
final groups = await NotificationChannelManager.getAllGroups();

// Deleting a group deletes its channels too:
await NotificationChannelManager.deleteGroup('calls');

Conversation channels (Android 11+)

Conversation channels give users per-conversation notification settings (e.g. per contact in a messaging app). Create the parent channel first, then a channel with parentChannelId and conversationId set:

await NotificationChannelManager.createChannel(const NotificationChannel(
  id: 'messages_alice',
  name: 'Alice',
  description: 'Messages from Alice',
  importance: NotificationChannelImportance.high,
  parentChannelId: 'messages',       // must exist
  conversationId: 'contact_alice',   // typically your shortcut id
));

// Conversation-aware lookup; falls back to the parent channel if no
// conversation channel exists for that id:
final channel = await NotificationChannelManager.getChannel(
  'messages',
  conversationId: 'contact_alice',
);

Read-only fields tell you what the user did with it: isConversation, isImportantConversation, isDemoted (user turned it back into a regular channel). Below Android 11 the channel is created as a regular channel.

Bubbles and channel state (Android 10+)

// Per-channel opt-in (only honored once the user allows bubbles for the app):
NotificationChannel(..., allowBubbles: true)

// App-level bubble state:
final allowed = await NotificationChannelManager.areBubblesAllowed();    // API 29+
final enabled = await NotificationChannelManager.areBubblesEnabled();    // API 31+
final preference = await NotificationChannelManager.getBubblePreference(); // none/all/selected

Channels also read back user-interaction state: hasUserSetImportance and hasUserSetSound tell you when an update to those fields would be ignored, and canBypassDnd lets a channel bypass Do Not Disturb.

Read, update, delete

final all = await NotificationChannelManager.getAllChannels();
final one = await NotificationChannelManager.getChannel('urgent_alerts'); // null if absent

// Only name, description, and importance are updatable after creation:
await NotificationChannelManager.updateChannel(const NotificationChannelUpdate(
  id: 'urgent_alerts',
  name: 'Critical alerts',
  description: 'Renamed',
  importance: NotificationChannelImportance.defaultImportance,
));

await NotificationChannelManager.deleteChannel('urgent_alerts');
await NotificationChannelManager.deleteAllChannels();

Batch variants exist for everything: createChannels, updateChannels, deleteMultiChannels, upsertGroups, deleteGroups, deleteAllGroups.

Things to keep in mind

These are Android behaviors, not plugin choices — see the official docs:

Deleting a channel is a soft delete. Creating another channel with the same id un-deletes it with its old settings. The system settings screen shows the number of deleted channels as a spam-prevention measure; on development devices, clear the app's data or reinstall to reset.
After creation, only name, description, and importance can change. Importance is only ever lowered, and only while the user hasn't altered the channel's settings themselves.
Deleting a group deletes all channels in it.
The user is in control. Once a channel exists, the user can change its sound, importance, vibration, etc. from system settings, and your app cannot override their choices.
NotificationChannelGroup.description and isBlocked require Android 9 (API 28); below that the description is ignored and isBlocked is always false.
Many modern devices have no notification LED, in which case lightColor has no visible effect.

Example app

The example app is a small channel-manager UI that exercises the whole API: browse channels and groups, create channels with every option, update them, and delete them. Run it with flutter run from example/.

Useful links

Contributing

This project is open source. Contributions are more than welcome!