Fix "Sensitive notification content hidden"

On Android 15 Google introduced new security measures that means apps cannot see notifications that contain 2 factor authentication codes. However any notifications that contain long strings of numbers can be affected.

Option 1: Disable Enhanced Notifications

Android has a feature called “Enhanced Notifications”. This feature is what is responsible for detecting which notifications contain 2 factor authentication codes. By disabling it, it allows BuzzKill to access them. To disable you need to go to:

Open system settings app
Go to Notification settings
Disable “Enhanced notifications”

Note that this will mean that some “smart” notification features like suggested reply buttons no longer work. If you prefer to keep those you can try option 2.

Option 2: Grant BuzzKill permission

To fix this, you can grant BuzzKill a special permission to access those notifications. This requires a Windows, Mac or Linux computer.

Step 1: Enable developer options

This is different depending on your device but can usually be found by going into the Android settings app, going into the About section and tapping the Build Number 7 seven times. If you’re using a Xiaomi device you’ll need to tap MIUI version instead.

Step 2: Enable USB debugging

Once you’ve enabled developer options you’ll need to head into the new developer options settings page and enable USB debugging If you’re using a Huawei device you’ll also need to enable “USB debugging (Security settings)”. The developer options can be found in “additional settings” on Huawei devices. If you’re using a Realme device you may need to check “disable permission monitoring”.

Step 3: Connect your device to your computer via USB

Find the USB cable that came with your device and connect your phone to your computer. Once plugged in you should get a popup on your phone asking if you want to allow the connection with the computer, accept it.

Step 4: Run command

Run the following command to grant BuzzKill a permission to read the sensitive notification content. If you receive an error when running it, indicating a SecurityException, check developer options and temporarily check the “Disable permission monitoring” option.

If you’re using a Mac

Open Spotlight and type “Terminal” to launch the Terminal. Then copy and paste the following into the Terminal and press enter:

curl -s https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r30.0.0-darwin.zip -o buzzkill_adb.zip && unzip -qq -o buzzkill_adb.zip && ./platform-tools/adb shell cmd appops set --user 0 com.samruston.buzzkill RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS allow && echo "Successfully granted permission" ; rm buzzkill_adb.zip && rm -r platform-tools

If it worked you should see “Successfully granted permission”. If it didn’t then you should see an error indicating what went wrong.

If you’re using Windows

Open the Windows search menu and type “Command Prompt” to launch it. Then copy and paste the following into Command Prompt and press enter:

curl -L https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r30.0.0-windows.zip -o platform.zip && ^
powershell -Command "Expand-Archive 'platform.zip' '.'" && ^
cd platform-tools && ^
adb.exe shell cmd appops set --user 0 com.samruston.buzzkill RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS allow && ^
adb.exe kill-server && ^
cd .. && ^
del platform.zip && ^
rmdir /Q /S platform-tools

If it worked you shouldn’t see any errors. If you see anything show up after running the command then something went wrong.

If you’re using Linux

Open the terminal app and copy and paste the following, then press enter:

curl -s https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r30.0.0-linux.zip -o buzzkill_adb.zip && unzip -qq -o buzzkill_adb.zip && ./platform-tools/adb shell cmd appops set --user 0 com.samruston.buzzkill RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS allow && echo "Successfully granted permission" ; rm buzzkill_adb.zip && rm -r platform-tools

If it worked you should see “Successfully granted permission”. If it didn’t then you should see an error indicating what went wrong.

Step 5: Restart your device

After that, any new notifications you get with 2 factor authentication codes (or similar looking notifications) should be received by BuzzKill correctly.

What does the command do?

The command does a few steps in order to simplify the process. Firstly it downloads the necessary tools to connect to your device from Google (by running this command you accept Google’s license agreement here https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools). It then uses a tool to grant BuzzKill the RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS permission. This is a special permission in Android which is why you need to use a computer to grant it.

What do I do if it didn’t work?

Please email [email protected] and I’ll help you through the setup if you’re having problems.