Every Tidywell notification, explained.
What fires, who gets it, when it arrives, and how to tune it. Including the daily reminder time picker.
Eight notification types, grouped by audience
Tidywell only sends notifications that are useful and timely. Some are personal — only you see them. Others are household-wide — they go to other members of your home. Every type below has its own toggle in Settings → Notifications.
Personal — just you
Daily reminder
A gentle nudge listing what's planned for today, ordered with pinned recurring tasks first then budget-filtered fillers. We schedule three days ahead so it stays accurate even if you don't open the app for a couple of mornings.
Task nudges (one-off tasks)
A reminder for one-off tasks specifically — when you commit to a date ("Clean out the garage on Saturday"), Tidywell pings you that morning. Recurring tasks are covered by the daily reminder, so this only fires for things you explicitly scheduled.
Streak warnings
A heads-up when you're about to break a streak you've already built. Only fires if you have a streak running — never as an empty guilt-trip on day zero.
Achievement unlocks
A full-screen celebration overlay when you unlock something — a badge, a milestone, a streak high. Coins are credited either way; this toggle controls whether you see the visual or the unlock happens silently in the background.
Household — others in your home
Roommate activity
Lets the rest of the household know when someone finishes something — "Anna finished a task — ✓ Wipe kitchen counters". Each member can mute this individually so it never feels like surveillance.
Sprint invites
When a housemate starts a 15/25/45-minute sprint, everyone else gets pinged so they can join. Recipients can mute this if they don't want sprint invitations.
Kids approval alerts
Three sub-types in Kids Mode: parents are pinged when a child finishes a task that needs review; the child is pinged back when a grown-up approves it (with their coin reward) or asks them to try again. Only appears as a toggle in households that have at least one child profile.
Guest prep alerts (in-app)
If you've granted calendar access, Tidywell scans for upcoming events (dinner, party, guests) and surfaces a prep-checklist suggestion as a banner on the Home tab. This is in-app only — it never sends a push.
Four levers, in order of subtlety
From per-toggle granularity to the system-level kill switch — pick the lightest tool for the job.
Per-type toggles
Open the app → Profile → Settings → Notifications. Every notification type has its own switch. Toggling one off only affects that type — your daily reminder still fires even if you mute roommate activity.
Reminder time picker
Tap "Reminder time" on the same screen to open a wheel picker. Pick any time on the 24-hour clock in 5-minute increments. The change applies to your daily reminder and to one-off task nudges (both fire at this time). The selected hour also drives streak warnings, which fire 2 hours before your daily reset.
OS-level permission (the kill switch)
If you turn off notifications in your phone's Settings app, Tidywell can't send you anything regardless of in-app toggles. The Notifications screen shows a card at the top reflecting the current OS state — "You'll be notified..." when granted, or "Notifications are blocked" with an Open Settings button when not.
Vacation mode (temporary mute)
When you turn on Vacation mode (Profile → Settings → Cleaning preferences → Vacation), every cleaning notification is suppressed for the duration. Streaks freeze, decay pauses, and the daily reminder + task nudges go quiet. Server pushes from housemates also stop targeting you. Toggling it off resumes everything where it left off.
Three concrete examples
A typical day with a typical household, walking through what hits each device.
9:00 AM — your reminder time
Daily reminder fires on your device
"3 tasks for today (~25 min) — Wipe counters, Vacuum lounge, +1 more". Plus, if today is the date you scheduled a one-off ("Clear out the garage"), you also get a separate nudge for that.
1:30 PM — your housemate cleans the kitchen
Their device sees a celebration. Yours gets a quiet ping.
Their app shows the inline celebration with coins. Your device gets "Anna finished a task — ✓ Wipe kitchen counters" — unless you've muted Roommate activity, in which case you'll see it next time you open the app instead.
10:00 PM — your daily reset is at midnight
Streak warning, only if needed
If your streak is alive but you haven't completed anything today, you get a single heads-up: "3-day streak at risk — finish one task before midnight". If you're already done for the day, nothing fires.
Common questions
Do my notification settings sync across devices?
Most do. Daily reminder, task nudges, streak warnings, achievement unlocks, and the time picker are stored on each device individually because they fire locally — change them per-device. Server-push toggles (Roommate activity, Sprint invites, Kids approval alerts) ARE synced to your account so other members' apps know not to send you those.
Why don't I see the "Kids approval alerts" toggle?
It only appears in households with at least one Kid profile. If you add a kid via Profile → Household members, the toggle shows up the next time you open the Notifications screen.
I'm getting too many pings. What's the gentlest way to dial down?
Start with Roommate activity and Sprint invites if you live with others — those are the most frequent. If you want to keep household awareness but cut your own load, leave Daily reminder on and turn off Task nudges (the per-task ones). For a complete pause, use Vacation mode — it suppresses everything until you flip it back.
Why isn't there a Seasonal suggestions toggle anymore?
Earlier builds had it, but the underlying tip catalogue and scheduler never shipped — it was a setting that didn't connect to anything. We removed it rather than leave a dead toggle. If we build seasonal tips in the future, the toggle returns.
Notifications stopped arriving — what should I check first?
Open Settings → Notifications in the app. The card at the top shows the current OS state. If it says "blocked", tap Open Settings and re-enable notifications for Tidywell. If it says "You'll be notified..." but you still don't get pings, check that the specific type isn't toggled off below, and that you're not in Vacation mode (Profile → Settings → Cleaning preferences).
We never use red, ever.
All Tidywell notifications use warm, anti-guilt language. Overdue tasks are warm amber, never red. Streak warnings are heads-ups, not threats. The whole system is built to nudge gently — and to be muted just as gently when you don't want it.