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Sync notifications with iPhone

With All iPhone Notifications selected, BlueFerry shows a desktop popup for each iPhone app notification. Normally that popup stays until it times out, even if you already cleared the notification on the phone. With this opt-in setting, a notification that is removed or dismissed on the iPhone also closes its popup on the desktop.

Turn it on

Turn on Sync notifications with iPhone under Desktop Notifications in the iPhone settings of the Qt client, or run:

blueferry notifications sync enable
blueferry notifications sync status
blueferry notifications sync disable

The choice is saved as mirror_iphone_removals in ~/.config/blueferry/settings.json and applies immediately. GetStatus reports it as mirror_iphone_removals.

What it does and doesn't do

  • It only closes popups. It never sends anything to the iPhone, and closing a popup on the desktop never clears the notification on the phone.
  • Only popups of iPhone app notifications are affected. Messages popups come from MAP and keep their own behaviour.
  • Popups with action buttons already close when their notification is removed on the iPhone, with or without this setting.
  • iOS numbers notifications per Bluetooth session and reuses the numbers. When the connection is re-established, or the iPhone replays its existing notifications, BlueFerry forgets which popup belonged to which number. Popups from before that point then simply time out.

Limits

  • Off by default.
  • The GTK, Quickshell and terminal clients have no switch yet; use the CLI.
  • It relies on iOS reporting the removal over ANCS (NotificationRemoved). The automated tests use simulated ANCS events; on a real iPhone it has only been in daily use on one developer setup, without a targeted test.

Privacy

BlueFerry keeps only the notification number and the desktop popup id, in memory, at most 64 entries. Nothing is logged, stored or broadcast.