---
name: Notification digest
slug: notification-digest
category: pattern
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Collecting many similar alerts into one summary rather than
  delivering each, so the count rises but the number of interruptions does not.
aliases:
  - name: notification grouping
    source: community
  - name: notification bundling
    source: community
  - name: batched notifications
    source: community
  - name: summary notification
    source: android
  - name: notification summary
    source: hig
tags:
  - email
  - messaging
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - notification-center
    - activity-feed
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources: []
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: many alerts arrive as one grouped summary
---

A digest separates two numbers that products tend to treat as one: how many things
happened, and how many times the person was interrupted. Six comments on a thread are six
events either way. Delivered one at a time they are six buzzes, six banners, and six
chances to lose whatever the reader was doing. Delivered as one row reading six new
comments, with the latest one quoted underneath, they are a single interruption carrying
the same information.

Both platform names are live, and they mean slightly different mechanics. Android groups
alerts by key and posts a summary notification that stands for the group, so the
individual items still exist and can be expanded. Apple's notification summary works on
the clock instead: it holds non-urgent alerts and delivers them together at times the
reader picks. A team saying "let's digest these" may mean either, which is worth settling
early, because grouping is a display decision and batching is a delivery schedule.

The design work is in the summary line. One row has to say how many, from where, and
enough of the newest item to judge whether it is worth opening, and it has to do that
without becoming a paragraph. The count is the easy half. The peek is the half that
decides whether the digest is useful or merely quiet, since a summary that says only "6
new comments" moves the reading work into the app rather than removing it.

The word to keep it apart from is [toast](/toast), which describes one transient message
the product shows itself, in its own window, about something the reader just did. A
digest is about traffic arriving from elsewhere and how much of the reader's attention it
is allowed to cost. Urgency is the one thing digesting must respect: an alert that is
genuinely time-critical is not a candidate, and a
[push notification](/push-notification) held back for four hours because it looked like
chatter is a bug the reader cannot see.