Local Notifications

Notifications scheduled and fired by the device, not by a backend. Use cases: daily reminders, follow-up prompts after onboarding, post-purchase nudges, inactivity reminders.

For server-sent notifications (FCM / APNs), see ../ionic-shared/references/push-notifications.md. The two plugins are independent and can be used together.

When to consult

• Setup, permissions, scheduling: setup-and-scheduling.md
• Patterns (recurring, channels, action handling): patterns.md

Hard rules

• ✅ Request permission when the user opts in to a feature that uses notifications, not on app launch.
• ✅ Always set a unique numeric id per notification — same id overwrites the previous one.
• ✅ On Android 13+ the OS auto-prompts for POST_NOTIFICATIONS the first time you schedule.
• ❌ Don't schedule more than ~64 simultaneous notifications on iOS — the OS silently drops the rest.
• ❌ Don't rely on local notifications for time-critical delivery — they can be delayed by the OS for power management. Push is for "this must arrive."

Library

npm install @capacitor/local-notifications
npx cap sync