Alerts & push settings

Turn notifications on or off, set budget thresholds, lock-screen privacy, and background sync options.

Settings → Alerts is where you control reminders and push notifications. For a full list of every notification type (cron jobs, events, inbox kinds), see All notifications.

Settings — Alerts tab

Notifications

Open alert settings

Settings (gear tab)
Alerts tab
Expand Manage notifications if the section is collapsed

Alerts status card

At the top of the Alerts tab, a status card summarizes:

Sync mode (standard vs encrypted E2EE) and unlock state
Push permission on this device
Quiet hours (active window or off)
Cloud sync for preference sync across devices

Quiet hours

Control	What it does
Enable quiet hours	Master toggle (default off)
Start / end time	Local schedule; supports overnight windows
Allow buddy & household invites	Social alerts can still push during quiet (default on)
Keep in-app inbox during quiet hours	Bell notifications still saved when push is silenced (default on)

Details: Quiet hours.

Catalog-driven groups

Alerts are grouped by topic (budgets, daily, scheduled, summaries, goals, household, buddies, confirmations, privacy). Each toggle shows a delivery badge:

Badge	Meaning
Device	Evaluated on this phone (required for E2EE financial copy)
Cloud ping	Generic wake push; device fills in details after open
Cloud	Server computes title/body from synced data
Cloud social	Buddy/household invites (exempt from quiet hours by default)
In-app only	Bell inbox / on-screen — no lock-screen push

On-device alerts (no push permission required)

These work from local data on your phone or browser:

Budget alerts

Control	What it does
Budget alerts toggle	Enables budget monitoring and threshold / exceeded notifications
Alert threshold	Warn at 50%, 70%, 80%, or 90% of each budget limit

Budget progress cards on the Dashboard appear whenever budgets exist — the toggle adds push and inbox alerts when you cross the threshold.

Daily reminder

Control	What it does
Daily reminder toggle	Evening nudge if you logged no expenses today
Dashboard banner	While the app is open, a greeting banner appears (dismissible for the day)

Daily reminder push and inbox items require sign-in. The banner also requires sign-in.

Cloud push alerts

These need sign-in, cloud sync, push permission, and a store or dev client build (not Expo Go). They appear under Push notifications when your platform supports cloud push.

Toggle	Notification kinds	Guide
Scheduled & bills	Due today, overdue, due tomorrow	Scheduled entries
Weekly summary	7-day spending recap (+ weekday picker)	Reports
Monthly recap	Previous month total (1st of month)	Reports
Goal milestones	50%, 75%, 100% on savings goals	Goals
Household activity	Member joined your household	Households

Buddy requests are always sent when someone uses your TRAIL- invite code — there is no separate toggle.

With end-to-end encryption, budget and goal push text is built on your device after a wake signal — the server does not read your amounts. See All notifications → E2EE path.

In-app notification inbox

Even when you miss a push:

Tap the bell on the Dashboard header
Browse unread and past alerts
Tap a row to open the relevant screen

Details: All notifications → In-app inbox.

Push permission

Allow notifications when your phone or browser asks. If you denied earlier:

Platform	Fix
iPhone	Settings → Notifications → Expense Trail → Allow
Android	Settings → Apps → Expense Trail → Notifications
Web	Lock icon in address bar → Notifications → Allow

On iPhone Safari, install to Home Screen before push works — see Web guide.

Option	Purpose
Show progress in background	Banner when sync, import, or export runs
Persistent notification (Android)	Ongoing icon in the shade during long sync
Sync offline changes in background	Upload queued edits when app is backgrounded
Silent background tasks	Hide success toasts for background work

Sync / import / export failures also add in-app error rows (see All notifications).

Android: if sync is slow, disable battery optimization for Expense Trail (link in Alerts when background sync is on).

Web push specifics

Chrome / Edge / Brave — best support on desktop and Android
iPhone Safari tab — cloud push toggles hidden until you Add to Home Screen
Expo Go — push not available; use store build

You can still get:

Budget cards on Dashboard
In-app inbox entries from on-device evaluators (when they run)

Full push suite and server-persisted inbox require account + cloud sync.