I Built an Android App That Recovers Deleted Notifications — Here's How (Show Dev)

#android #productivity #showdev #playstore

Have you ever dismissed a notification, then immediately regretted it because it had an OTP or an important message?

That's exactly why I built Notification Box.

The Problem

Android notifications are ephemeral by design — once they're gone, they're gone. WhatsApp previews, OTP codes, delivery alerts, deleted messages — all vanish the moment you swipe them away or the app withdraws them.

I found myself constantly missing OTPs that expired before I could use them, or losing track of messages from apps that don't keep a proper history.

What Notification Box Does

Notification Box runs a lightweight background service that archives every notification before it disappears. Think of it as a notification DVR.

Key features:

📦 Automatic archiving — captures notifications from all apps silently in the background
🔍 Searchable history — find any past notification instantly
🔑 OTP auto-extraction — detects and copies OTP codes automatically
🗑️ Recover deleted messages — retrieve messages from apps that delete previews
🔒 Privacy-first — everything stays on your device, no cloud sync

The Technical Side

Built with:

Kotlin + Android SDK
NotificationListenerService for capturing notifications
Room database for local storage
Jetpack Compose for the UI
No root required — uses standard Android accessibility APIs

The trickiest part was handling the NotificationListenerService lifecycle correctly across different OEM battery optimizations. Samsung and Xiaomi devices in particular aggressively kill background services — I ended up using a foreground service with a minimal notification to keep it alive reliably.

Try It

Available on Google Play:
👉 Notification Box on Google Play

Also launching on Product Hunt on June 17 — would love your support!

I'm Rahul, a full-stack Android & web engineer. Happy to answer any questions about the implementation or the challenges of building a reliable notification listener service on modern Android.

What notification-related pain points have you run into? Drop them in the comments 👇