First of all, the "*monitoring*" status bar notification can be turned off without side effects, not directly by the app, but via the Android app settings, please read on.
*If you came here by clicking on the "monitoring" notification, you should know that the next click will open the unified inbox.*
A low priority permanent status bar notification with the number of accounts being monitored and the number of operations pending (see the next question) is shown
to prevent Android from killing the service that takes care of continuous receiving email.
This was [already necessary](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html#startForeground(int,%20android.app.Notification)),
but with the introduction of [doze mode](https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-state/doze-standby) in Android 6 Marshmallow this is more than ever necessary.
Doze mode will stop all apps when the screen is off for some time, unless the app did start a foreground service, which requires showing a status bar notification.
To reliably receive messages in the background the app needs to start a service,
which will let Android display a status bar notification notifying you about potential battery usage.
Most, if not all, other email apps don't show a notification
with the "side effect" that new messages are often not or late being reported and that messages are not or late being sent.
Android shows icons of high priority status bar notifications first and will hide the icon of FairEmail's notification if there is no space to show icons anymore.
In practice this means that the status bar notification doesn't take space in the status bar, unless there is space available.
The status bar notification can be disabled, without side effects, via the notification settings of FairEmail:
The service can't be started without a notification and the app can't disable the notification either.
However, you can disable the notification yourself, without side effects, via the notification settings of FairEmail:
* Android 8 Oreo and later: tap the *Receive channel* button and disable the channel via the Android settings (this won't disable new message notifications)
* Android 7 Nougat and before: enabled *Use background service to synchronize messages*, but be sure to read the remark below the setting
* Android 7 Nougat and before: enabled *Use background service to synchronize messages*, but be sure to read the remark below the setting first
You can switch to periodically synchronization of messages in the receive settings to remove the notification, but be aware that this might use more battery power.
You can also switch to periodically synchronization of messages in the receive settings to remove the notification, but be aware that this might use more battery power.
See [here](#user-content-faq39) for more details about battery usage.
Android 8 Oreo might also show a status bar notification with the text *Apps are running in the background*.
Please see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7vw7l4/psa_turn_off_background_apps_notification/) about how you can disable this notification.
Some people suggested to use [Firebase Cloud Messaging](https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/) (FCM) instead of an Android service with a status bar notification,
but this would require email providers to send FCM messages or a central server where all messages are collected sending FCM messages.
The first is not going to happen and the last would have significant privacy implications.
*Background*
The service is a [foreground service](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html#startForeground(int,%20android.app.Notification))
and is needed to prevent Android from stopping the service when the device is sleeping
M66B
3 years ago