Overview

Stream Chat supports push for both Android and iOS through integration with Firebase or Apple Push Notification (APN). Push sends new messages to mobile devices that you've configured to watch a channel.

Only new messages are pushed to mobile devices. If you need a more robust set of events tracked and sent to clients, see Webhooks for more information.

Push is available to Stream Chat integrations running in a mobile environment. Depending on which Stream Chat SDK you are using, the process for setting up push notifications will be slightly different. Follow the guide for your chosen SDK:

• React Native

• Flutter

• Android

• iOS

Push message delivery behaves according to these rules:

• Push only applies to new message events.
• Only channel members can receive push messages.
• Members that are currently online do not receive push messages.
• Messages added within a thread are only sent to users that are part of that thread (they posted at least one message or were mentioned).
• Messages from muted users are not sent.
• Messages are sent to all registered devices for a user (up to 25) .
• Up to 100 members of a channel will receive push notifications.
• skip_push is not marked as true, as described here.
• push_notifications is enabled (default) on the channel type for message is sent.

Push notifications are not always intuitive to implement because they involve systems outside of Stream Chat with a number of moving parts. We've put together some resources on common errors and how to resolve them.

While Stream Chat doesn't have first class integration for Push providers besides Firebase and APN, it is entirely possible to integrate with additional providers using Webhooks.