How to enable Safari push notifications on iPhone or iPad

iPhone users can add websites to their iOS 18 home screens as progressive web apps, and essentially turn sites into standalone apps. However, there are a few features typically reserved for iOS apps, and one of those is push notifications. If you do want to receive push notifications from a website, there is a workaround in the Settings app that involves flipping a WebKit flag.

This gives web apps the ability to send push notifications through Safari, as long as the website natively supports browser notifications. Apple announced this functionality in 2022 and shipped it in 2023, but it's still considered an experimental feature, so you'll have to follow the steps below to use it.

How to enable push notifications in Safari

If you have a recent iPhone, or an iPad running version 16.4 or later, you can follow the steps below to enable Safari push notifications for specific websites. By doing so, you will receive alerts similar to those of native iOS apps, helping you know when your favorite websites publish timely content.

1. Open the Settings app on iOS 18.
2. Scroll down to the Apps tab, and tap on it.
3. After finding the Safari tab, press it.
   

   

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4. Find the Advanced tab at the bottom of the screen and tap on it.
5. Tap the Feature Flags tab.
6. You will see a long list of WebKit flags organized in alphabetical order. Look for Notifications and flip the toggle them on.
   

   

   

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If you're running an earlier version of iOS 18, you won't see an Apps tab. Instead, look for the Safari tab in the main settings list after launching the app.

How to add a website to your iOS Home Screen

After that, you'll need to manually add each website you'd like to receive notifications from to your Home Screen. Here's how:

1. Launch the Safari app and visit the website you'd like to receive push notifications from.
2. Tap on the Share button in the middle of the bottom bar
3. Choose Add to Home Screen.
4. Optionally rename the web app, then tap Add in the top right corner.
5. It will now appear on your Home Screen as a native app. Launch the newly-added web app.
6. Find the website's notifications settings and enable push notifications.
7. iOS will ask for your permission to enable them. Tap Allow to finish.

Now, the web app will be able to notify you as long as you keep it on your Home Screen. If you delete it, then the permission is revoked automatically, and you won't be able to receive alerts from it until you add it again.

Should you use push notifications from websites on iPhone?

As you can see, the process to enable Safari push notifications on iOS and iPadOS is more complex when compared to macOS because you need to add the web app to the Home Screen for it to work. On new Macs, you can just allow or deny website permissions without needing to bookmark them in any way.

Regardless, it can be done now on newer versions of iOS 16 or later. It's useful, but be sure to choose wisely which websites you give access to notifications in Safari. If you give permission to the wrong website, your iPhone could quickly be cluttered with spam.