How to Disable Heads-Up Notifications on the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T

OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T owners can follow this simple step by step guide to complete disable heads-up notifications (which are also known as peeking notifications).

When Google rolled out Android 5.0 Lollipop, they changed the way notifications were disabled on a smartphone or a tablet. Before, the details of the notification would be scrolled across the status bar but now they pop in from the top of the screen. In theory, this is a great way of quickly showing you the contents of the notification and not forcing you to stare at the screen as the details are scrolling. This can be incredibly annoying when playing a game or watching a video too.

So I recently wrote a tutorial for XDA about how to block these heads-up notifications, but this guide used Tasker and only kicked in when you launched specific applications or games.

Not everyone wants to mess with Tasker and some people want this feature disabled completely. So I’m taking a bit of that guide and show you a much easier way to completely disable heads-up or peeking notifications on the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T.

This guide does not require root access, but it does require you to enter a couple of ADB commands in a Command Prompt. Follow the steps below to get your phone and PC setup for that.

OnePlus 5 Heads-Up Notifications

1. Open a Command Prompt either inside the ADB folder, or browse to it
2. Type the following command. . .
3. adb devices
4. . . .and press Enter on the keyboard
5. Then type the following command. . .
6. adb shell
7. . . .and press Enter on the keyboard
8. Lastly, type the following command. . .
9. settings put global heads_up_notifications_enabled 0
10. . . .and press Enter on the keyboard
11. Test to see if heads-up notifications have been disabled

Explanation

Android used to have a user-facing way of disabling heads-up notifications for each application. Some OEMs offered a way to disable it completely too. This is somewhat coming back in Android Oreo, but you can only disable them for specific notification channels. Thankfully, the way to disable this specific feature system wide is still available in Android, we just have to toggle it with an ADB command (as shown in the guide above).

So to start, make sure you have ADB and Fastboot tools properly setup on your computer. I recommend the linked Minimal ADB and Fastboot tools (unless you’re familiar with the Command Prompt) since you can simply double click the shortcut it creates on your desktop to open a Command Prompt in the exact place you need to be. So once a Command Prompt is open, be sure you’re also in the same folder as your ADB and Fastboot tools are in.

Now you want to execute the adb devices command to start the ADB service on your computer. If this is the first time doing this with the OnePlus 5 or OnePlus 5T, then you’ll be prompted to allow USB Debugging access from the PC (grant it of course). Now you want to execute the adb shell command and then execute the long settings put global command. You’ll see that at the end of this command is the number 0. This means we’re disabling OnePlus 5 heads-up notifications.

You can follow along with the embedded video above to get an idea of what is actually happening. This does not disable notifications entirely and instead will just disable the peeking/heads-up notification part. You can also come back to the Command Prompt at any time in the future and enable heads-up notifications again by replacing that 0 with a 1. This setting does not require root access, it sticks after a reboot, but will go back to normal when you do a factory reset (and possibly a dirty flash).