Receive Instagram and WhatsApp Notifications on Samsung Galaxy Watch

We will be covering Instagram and WhatsApp only for this guide but it should work for other apps too.

  1. Open the Galaxy Wearable app on the phone you have connected to your Watch. Now tap on the hamburger menu (three-bar icon) and select the Galaxy Watch.
  2. Now tap on the Watch settings and then select the Notifications option.
  3. In the Notifications settings, select App notifications and then enable the toggle beside Instagram and WhatsApp. You can also enable the toggle beside other apps that you want to get notifications from on your Galaxy Watch.
  4. Unlike on your phone, you cannot customize each app’s notification channels that you want to receive on your Galaxy Watch. But for some messaging apps like WhatsApp, you can create custom watch notifications. To do that, tap on WhatsApp and then enable the toggle beside the Custom watch notification style.
  5. Here, you can choose Alert (notification with sound) or Silent (notification without sound) notification option. You can also change the sound and vibration patterns of notifications from WhatsApp. However, you can’t do the same for Instagram.

How to Stop Spam From Instagram or Third-Party Apps

When you enable notifications from third-party apps, you get all types of notifications. No way to filter. For example, when you enable notifications on Instagram, you not only get DM notifications but also get notifications when someone likes, comments, or uploads their story. It can frustrating, but there is a way around it.

  1. Open the Settings app on your phone, select Apps and here you should see a list of apps you have installed. If not, select the See all apps option.
  2. Now tap on the Search icon at the top, search for the Instagram app and open it.
  3. Here, select the Notifications option. Here you should see all the categories of Instagram notifications. If you don’t see it, select the Notification categories option.
  4. In the categories, turn off the toggle beside the categories you don’t want like. You can also turn off Instagram and IGTV sections completely. Still, you can get notifications from the Direct channel that sends you notifications for direct messages. Note that it not only stops these notifications on the Galaxy Watch but also on the phone. But this is the only way to get Instagram notifications without all the spam that comes with it.

Instagram and WhatsApp Notifications on Galaxy Watch

The above method not only works with Instagram and WhatsApp, but you can also use it to enable notifications for any third-party apps like Telegram, Snapchat, Google Maps, etc. Some messaging apps have additional options like custom sound for notifications. If you enable notifications for any app, you will receive all notifications and there is no way to choose categories specifically for the Watch. But you can turn off those notifications for the phone too to stop such notifications.