Notifications API

The Notifications API allows web pages to control the display of system notifications to the end user. These are outside the top-level browsing context viewport, so therefore can be displayed even when the user has switched tabs or moved to a different app. The API is designed to be compatible with existing notification systems, across different platforms.

Concepts and usage

On supported platforms, showing a system notification generally involves two things. First, the user needs to grant the current origin permission to display system notifications, which is generally done when the app or site initialises, using the Notification.requestPermission() method. This will spawn a request dialog, along the following lines:

From here the user can choose to allow notifications from this origin, block notifications from this origin, or not choose at this point. Once a choice has been made, the setting will generally persist for the current session.

Note: As of Firefox 44, the permissions for Notifications and Push have been merged. If permission is granted for notifications, push will also be enabled.

Next, a new notification is created using the Notification() constructor. This must be passed a title argument, and can optionally be passed an options object to specify options, such as text direction, body text, icon to display, notification sound to play, and more.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

In addition, the Notifications API spec specifies a number of additions to the ServiceWorker API, to allow service workers to fire notifications.

Note: To find out more about using notifications in your own app, read Using the Notifications API.

Notifications interfaces

Notification: Defines a notification object.

Service worker additions

ServiceWorkerRegistration: Includes the ServiceWorkerRegistration.showNotification() and ServiceWorkerRegistration.getNotifications() method, for controlling the display of notifications.
ServiceWorkerGlobalScope: Includes the ServiceWorkerGlobalScope.onnotificationclick handler, for firing custom functions when a notification is clicked.
NotificationEvent: A specific type of event object, based on ExtendableEvent, which represents a notification that has fired.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Notifications API	Living Standard	Living standard

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	5webkit^[1] 22	4.0 (2.0)moz^[2] 22.0 (22.0)	No support	25	6^[3]
Available in workers	?	41.0 (41.0)	?	?	?
Service worker additions	42.0	42.0 (42.0)^[4]	?	?	?

Feature	Android	Android Webview	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	Firefox OS	IE Mobile	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile	Chrome for Android
Basic support	?	(Yes)	4.0 (2.0)moz^[2] 22.0 (22.0)	1.0.1moz^[2] 1.2	No support	?	No support	(Yes)
Available in workers	?	?	41.0 (41.0)	(Yes)	?	?	?	?
Service worker additions	No support	No support	42.0 (42.0)^[4]	(Yes)	?	?	?	42.0

[1] Prior to Chrome 22, the support for notification followed an old prefixed version of the specification and used the navigator.webkitNotifications object to instantiate a new notification. Prior to Chrome 32, Notification.permission was not supported.

[2] Prior to Firefox 22 (Firefox OS <1.2), the instantiation of a new notification was done with the navigator.mozNotification object through its createNotification() method. In addition, the Notification was displayed when calling the show() method, and supported only the click and close events (Nick Desaulniers wrote a Notification shim to cover both newer and older implementations.)

[3] Safari started to support notification with Safari 6, but only on Mac OSX 10.8+ (Mountain Lion).

[4] Firefox 42 has shipped with web notifications from Service Workers disabled.

Firefox OS permissions

When using notifications in a Firefox OS app, be sure to add the desktop-notification permission in your manifest file. Notifications can be used at any permission level, hosted or above:

"permissions": {
  "desktop-notification": {}
}