Google is testing Android option to set ringtone and notification volume separately

Google will probably make it possible in a future version of Android to adjust the volume of the ringtone and that of other notifications separately. This allows a ringtone to have a lower or higher volume than notifications from apps.

According to journalist Mishaal Rahman, several users of the Android 14 Developer Preview 2 are seeing that feature appear. In DP2, they can adjust different volumes per function in the volume settings. This has been possible in Android for years, but now the ringtone and notifications are also specifically separated.

In old versions of Android, users could only control the volume of media or the alarm clock and that of all incoming notifications. Ringtones were grouped with other notifications. In the developer preview there will be two different options for that feature, so that the volumes can be set separately from each other.

Users have been asking for that feature for years, but Google only started an experiment with it in a preview of Android 13. Back then, testers had to enable that feature manually with a flag. In Android 14 DP2, Google has done that itself, so without users asking for it. For the time being, this only applies to Pixel devices; it is not known if or when the feature will become generally available.