What you need to know
- Google will likely introduce a separate volume control slider for ringtones and notifications soon.
- The change was spotted in the Android issue tracker as of December 2021.
- It is expected to come with the stable version of Android 13 QPR3 or the arrival of Android 14.
Google finally unlinked the ringtone and notification volume control slices from each other in response to a growing number of user requests, removing a long-standing limitation that many users found annoying.
Separate sliders could arrive with Android 14, as pointed out by a Google representative in a comment below the issue tracker (Opens in a new tab) which began in December 2021 (via 9to5Google (Opens in a new tab)). The feature request has been flagged as “Stable,” indicating it’s heading down the line.
Google is separating the notification and ringtone volume sliders on Android phones. This feature was a much-needed improvement, first spotted in Android 13 QPR2 beta 1, although it isn’t enabled by default. Although QPR2 achieved a stable release last March, the feature was still lacking.
9to5 reports that no changes have been spotted on Android 13 QPR3 Beta 3 or Android 14 Beta 1.1 that would indicate the arrival of separate volume control sliders.
When it becomes public, you’ll eventually be able to mute the ringtone for incoming calls and set a higher volume for notifications, and vice versa, depending on your priorities. This functionality was available in previous versions of Android back in the day, but Google eventually removed it and merged ringtone and notification volumes.
As a result, adjusting one may affect the other, which can be frustrating for users who want to be able to adjust the volume of their notifications without affecting the volume of their ringtone. On the other hand, many of Samsung’s best phones have always included this functionality.
It is not yet clear when this feature will be launched, but it is expected to be available in Android 14 or the stable version of Android 13 QPR3 in June. The Google employee only mentioned that “the requested feature will be available in a future build”.
This will finally allow users to fine-tune their audio settings more precisely, which is one that has been long overdue.