Google wants to clean up your lock screen, and it could do so as soon as March

Key Takeaways

Google is working on a new feature called ‘Lock screen notification minimalism’ to declutter your Android device’s lock screen.
This feature will minimize the size of notifications on the lock screen, allowing for a cleaner and less cluttered look.
The feature is expected to be part of a future Android release. It could be released with the March Pixel Feature Drop, or it could be reserved for Android 16.

Lock screen notifications have been a standard feature on Pixel devices for several years now, and while the feature’s implementation has remained rather consistent for a while now, Google might be planning a significant change in a future Android release, potentially with the March 2025 Pixel Feature Drop, or with Android 16.

As part of the change, your lock screen might offer a more decluttered look while not sacrificing any functionality.

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The potential change was first highlighted by Mishaal Rahman in a report for Anroid Authority. According to his report, code found in early November’s Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 suggests that Google is working on a ‘Lock screen notification minimalism’ feature, which, as its name suggests, will surface lock screen notifications in a more toned-down format.

Why would you need the notifications to appear in a minimal format? Essentially because as it stands now, if you have multiple unchecked notifications, their lock screen bubbles take up almost half of the display, obscuring your wallpaper of choice. With what Google is working on, all your notifications would live within a small pill on the top half of the lock screen, highlighting only the applications tied to the notification. Tapping the pill would reveal the notifications in all their unbound glory.

Once live, the feature will show up under Settings → Notifications → Lock screen notification minimalism.

There might be a trade-off here

Screenshots highlighting Google's in-development 'lock screen notification minimalism' feature.

Source: Android Authority

Code found in the Android build suggests that the feature will also “show fewer notifications on lock screen,” but Rahman suggests that is not the case — the feature only folds notifications into a small pill, and tapping the pill reveals all notifications that would normally be highlighted.

We’re hoping that whenever the feature does roll out, it gives users the option to opt in. This is because while it does unclutter the lock screen, it also adds one extra tap when you’re trying to quickly glance through your unchecked notifications.

Elsewhere, while the feature’s code was first spotted in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1, which will make up the March 2025 Pixel Feature Drop, it is not certain if it will roll out within Android 15’s main release cycle. Rahman suggests that the feature could also be reserved for Android 16, which, we already know, is slated to introduce a Notification cooldown feature and a lock-screen specific feature that will hide sensitive notifications like one-time-passwords.