Imagine the horror of not knowing an essential notification has arrived on your Galaxy S20 phone. That will surely give you a fright if you’re on a time-sensitive project and are waiting for important messages from your team.
To avoid being driven to a corner by notification sounds failing you, you must first know what triggers it and how to quickly fix it.
The Samsung Galaxy S20’s notification sound issue may occur due to the Do Not Disturb and power-saving features. To fix the sound problem, navigate to your Samsung Galaxy S20’s settings menu to turn these features off.
Fortunately, we have more solutions to share with you. In this post, we’ve tested nine solutions to help you fix your Samsung Galaxy S20’s faulty notification sounds so you never miss essential updates as we did.
FIX 1. Restart your phone
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 3 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 40 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Conducting a restart is one of the easiest ways to deal with a Samsung Galaxy S20 having notification sound issues. Doing so lets you improve your phone’s working condition, allowing its system to refresh its memory and correct minor bugs and glitches.
This solution is helpful since most sound issues on Samsung phones are due to system-related errors and malfunctions. You also don’t need to worry since restarting your phone won’t delete your essential data and files, making it a safe solution.
This troubleshooting method is quick and straightforward, so it’s the ideal solution to get your phone working urgently.
| Step 1: Tap and simultaneously hold your Galaxy phone’s power and volume down buttons.  |
| Step 2: Stop holding the buttons when a Samsung Galaxy logo appears on the screen.  |
Step 3: Wait for your Galaxy phone to boot its system. |
FIX 2. Turn off your Galaxy S20’s “Do Not Disturb” mode
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 4 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 20 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
If your Samsung Galaxy S20 is under the Do Not Disturb mode, notifications are blocked automatically. As such, you won’t notice or hear sound alerts even if you get bombarded with notifications while this feature is active on your phone.
As the name suggests, this feature helps you focus on an important task and avoid disturbance from notification sounds. However, when waiting for an important call, text, or email, we highly recommend turning off your S20’s Do Not Disturb mode.
Step 1: Go to Settings. |
Step 2: Go to Notifications. |
Step 3: Go to “Do not disturb.” |
Step 4: Turn off “Do not disturb.” |
FIX 3. Turn off your Galaxy S20’s power-saving mode
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 4 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 20 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
The Samsung Galaxy S20’s power-saving feature is a godsend if you can’t access a nearby power supply. With this, you can extend your phone’s battery so you can continue using it for essential tasks until you have the option to recharge its battery.
Unfortunately, this feature may limit device performance, so it’s likely to cause your Galaxy S20’s notification sound to not work. Here’s how you can turn off this power-saving feature so your phone can send you notifications without issues:
Step 1: Go to Settings. |
| Step 2: Scroll down and open the “Battery and device care” menu.  |
Step 3: Go to Battery. |
Step 4: Turn off “Power saving.” |
FIX 4. Enable sounds for your Galaxy S20’s notifications
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 4 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 20 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Whenever your Samsung Galaxy S20 has sound issues, it isn’t surprising when it has something to do with its sound settings. You must double-check your phone’s sound mode settings to ensure it isn’t on vibrate or mute mode.
Step 1: Go to Settings. |
Step 2: Select “Sounds and vibration.” |
Step 3: Set Sound as your phone’s sound mode. Note: This configuration will enable sounds on your Galaxy S20, so the following step is optional. |
| Step 4: Go to Notification Sound to customize your phone’s notification alert.  |
FIX 5. Raise the notifications volume settings
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 5 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 25 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Even when your Samsung Galaxy S20’s notification sounds are working correctly, you may think there’s a problem when their volume is too low. As such, you should double-check whether your phone’s notification volume is sufficient for your needs.
You can also follow this guide to increase the volume level for your phone’s media, alarms, and more.
| Step 1: Go to Settings. |
| Step 2: Select “Sounds and vibration.” |
| Step 3: Set Sound as your phone’s sound mode. |
Step 4: Go to Volume. |
| Step 5: Adjust the volume slider for Notifications according to your preference.  |
FIX 6. Allow background app activity
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 5 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 25 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Since most notification sounds are from your installed apps, you must ensure they’re in optimal condition to keep sending you these alerts. After all, not receiving any notification may lead you to think you have a faulty Galaxy S20 notification sound.
In particular, we recommend checking whether or not your apps have permission to work in the background. This action is essential because most apps must continue running their processes even when you’re not actively using them.
So, allowing background activity will help your apps continue running on your Samsung Galaxy S20. Although this solution doesn’t address your phone’s sound issue directly, the result fixes it, which is a crucial step.
| Step 1: Go to Settings. |
Step 2: Go to Apps. |
Step 3: Select an app. |
Step 4: Go to Battery. |
| Step 5: Enable “Allow background activity.” |
FIX 7. Allow app notifications
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 3 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 40 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Regardless of your phone’s sound settings, you must always ensure your apps can send you notifications. Otherwise, you won’t see any notification bubbles on your apps even if your linked accounts receive status updates from these services.
After all, you won’t hear sound alerts if your Samsung Galaxy S20 can’t receive notification bubbles. Follow the steps below to enable app notifications on your phone:
| Step 1: Go to Settings. |
| Step 2: Go to Apps. |
Step 3: Select an app. |
Step 4: Go to Notifications. |
Step 5: Turn on the “Show notifications” switch. |
| Step 6: Set the app’s alerts to “Allow sound and vibration.”  |
FIX 8. Reset your Galaxy S20’s settings
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 6 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 30 seconds |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
Aside from your phone’s sound mode, other settings’ configurations may influence how its notification sounds work. Unfortunately, identifying which settings are causing problems can be tedious if you don’t know what to check.
As such, we recommend resetting all settings on your Samsung Galaxy S20. This way, you can simultaneously restore all the default settings configuration on your phone.
This method is more efficient than navigating your phone’s individual settings menus, and here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Go to Settings. |
Step 2: Open General Management. |
Step 3: Go to Reset. |
Step 4: Click the “Reset all settings” option. |
Step 5: Click Reset settings. |
Step 6: Click Reset. |
FIX 9. Reset your phone
| Difficulty | Very Easy ●○○○○ |
| Number of Steps | 5 |
| Time to Perform Fix | 3 minutes |
| Things Needed | A Samsung Galaxy S20 |
After trying the abovementioned solutions, you can perform a factory reset if your Galaxy S20 notification issue persists. Like the previous solution, this method will restore your phone’s default settings configuration.
However, you’ll also permanently lose your Samsung phone’s saved data and installed apps. Luckily, you can back up your essential user data using Samsung Cloud, so you need to redownload your apps once you complete the factory reset.
Step 1: Go to Settings. |
| Step 2: Open General Management and go to Reset.  |
Step 3: Click “Factory data reset.” |
Step 4: Go to Reset. |
| Step 5: Press the Delete All button to revert your Galaxy S20 to its default settings. |
