⭐ NotiStar

A lightweight Android app that logs and archives all your incoming notifications so you never miss a thing. NotiStar runs a background Notification Listener Service to capture every alert in real time and stores them persistently in a local Room database, giving you a searchable, scrollable history of everything that came in.

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💡 Inspiration

This project is directly inspired by NotiStar — a built-in notification log feature available natively on Samsung devices only. Samsung's NotiStar serves the exact same purpose: it keeps a running history of all your notifications, which is especially handy for recovering deleted messages that you may have dismissed before reading.

After switching from a Samsung device to a Nothing Phone, I lost access to this native feature. Since Nothing OS doesn't ship an equivalent out of the box, I built my own — bringing the same core experience to any Android device.

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📱 Screenshots

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✨ Features

• Real-time notification capture — Intercepts alerting & conversation notifications as soon as they arrive via NotificationListenerService.
• Persistent local storage — Every notification is saved to a Room (SQLite) database so it survives app restarts.
• Reverse-chronological feed — The latest notifications always appear at the top.
• Live search — Filter your notification history by app name, title, body text, or timestamp instantly.
• App icons — Each notification card displays the originating app's icon via Coil image loading.
• Permission gate — Gracefully prompts users to grant Notification Listener access if it hasn't been granted yet.

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🏗️ Architecture & Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
UI	Jetpack Compose + Material 3
State management	StateFlow / collectAsStateWithLifecycle
Dependency Injection	Dagger Hilt
Local database	Room (KSP annotation processing)
Async	Kotlin Coroutines
Image loading	Coil (coil-compose)
Background service	NotificationListenerService

Project Structure

notiStar/
└── app/src/main/java/com/example/notistar/
    ├── MainActivity.kt                          # Single-activity entry point & Compose UI
    ├── MyApplication.kt                         # Hilt application class
    ├── Services/
    │   └── NotificationListener.kt             # Background listener service
    ├── ViewModels/
    │   ├── DBContents.kt                        # Exposes notification Flow to UI
    │   └── PermissionCheck.kt                  # Tracks listener permission state
    ├── data/
    │   ├── database/
    │   │   ├── AppDataBase.kt                   # Room database definition
    │   │   ├── RoomDao.kt                       # DAO — insert & query all notifications
    │   │   └── RoomEntity.kt                    # Notification table schema
    │   └── repository/
    │       └── UpdateDBWithIncomingNotifications.kt  # Repo layer between service & DB
    ├── modules/
    │   └── DiModule.kt                          # Hilt module — provides DB & DAO singletons
    └── ui/theme/
        ├── Color.kt
        ├── Theme.kt
        └── Type.kt

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Android Studio Hedgehog (or newer)
• Android SDK API 24 (Android 7.0) or higher
• A physical or emulated device running Android 7.0+

Build & Run

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/notiStar.git
   cd notiStar

2. Open in Android Studio

   • File → Open → select the notiStar directory.

3. Sync Gradle

   • Android Studio will prompt you to sync; click Sync Now.

4. Run the app

   • Select your target device and press ▶ Run.

Grant Notification Access

On first launch the app will detect that Notification Listener permission hasn't been granted and show a prompt. Tap "Give app permissions" to be taken directly to the system settings screen where you can enable NotiStar under Notification access.

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⚙️ How It Works

Incoming notification
        │
        ▼
NotificationListenerService  ──► extracts title, body, package name, timestamp
        │
        ▼
UpdateDBWithIncomingNotifications (Repository)
        │
        ▼
Room Database  (NOTISTAR_DB / RoomEntity table)
        │
        ▼
RoomDao.getAll()  →  Flow<List<RoomEntity>>
        │
        ▼
DBContents ViewModel  →  collectAsStateWithLifecycle()
        │
        ▼
Compose UI  (reversed list + live search filter)

The NotificationListenerService is configured via the AndroidManifest.xml to only capture alerting and conversation category notifications, silently ignoring ongoing and silent system notifications.

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🔒 Permissions

Permission	Purpose
BIND_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SERVICE	Allows the service to read all incoming notifications
CAMERA (optional)	Declared as non-required; reserved for future features

⚠️ The Notification Listener permission is a special system permission. Android requires users to explicitly grant it via Settings → Apps → Special app access → Notification access.

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🛠️ Configuration

Setting	Value
minSdk	24 (Android 7.0)
targetSdk / compileSdk	36
versionName	1.0
Database name	NOTISTAR_DB

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🗺️ Roadmap

• Notification grouping by app
• Per-app filtering / allow-list / block-list
• Swipe-to-delete individual notifications
• Export history as CSV or JSON
• Dark / Light theme toggle
• Widget showing recent notification count

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🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.