Notification Issues
How Kinu's gentle reminders work, and what to check if they are not coming through.
Kinu sends very few notifications, and that is on purpose.
Most apps compete for your attention. Kinu does the opposite. There are no streaks, no engagement prompts, and nothing like "you have not opened the app in 3 days." Kinu is a calm place to remember the little things about your people, with a gentle reminder when it is time to reach out. The rest of the time, it stays quiet and trusts you to check in when it feels right.
If your reminders have gone silent when you expected one, this page walks through how Kinu's notifications work and how to get them flowing again.
What Kinu can notify you about
When you allow notifications and turn the matching reminder on, Kinu may send you:
- Important date reminders. A heads-up around a birthday, anniversary, or other date you have saved.
- Moment reminders. A quiet reminder to bring back a moment you wanted to remember later.
- Quiet nudges. If you opt in, a soft note when someone you care about has been quiet for a while. You choose how often these arrive: weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.
That is the whole list. No noise, no pressure.
What Kinu never sends
- Social-style alerts like "someone viewed your profile"
- Streak reminders or daily check-in prompts
- Marketing or promotional messages
- Anything built to create urgency or guilt
When reminders arrive
Kinu does not buzz at random hours. Every reminder lands at a single time you set, and Kinu shifts it out of your quiet hours so nothing wakes you up.
- Preferred notification time. By default this is 9:00 AM. Reminders for a given day are delivered at this time.
- Quiet hours. By default this is 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM. Nothing is sent during this window. If a reminder would fall inside quiet hours, Kinu moves it to the end of the window instead.
You can change both under Settings > Notifications in the app, in the Timing section.
Kinu also respects each person's Mode. If someone is set to Paused, Kinu will not send reminders about them at all. Low energy keeps things minimal, and Active allows all of their reminders. You can change a person's mode from their profile, in the Relational Compass.
Not getting any notifications at all?
If you turned reminders on but nothing is coming through, work down this list. Most cases are a device permission that was never granted, or background activity being restricted.
1. Check the settings inside Kinu
Open Settings > Notifications in the app.
Look at the banner at the top. If it says notifications are disabled, tap Open Settings to fix the device permission, then come back.
In the Reminders section, make sure the reminder types you want are switched on. Important date reminders, moment reminders, and birthday reminders each have their own toggle.
If you want quiet nudges, turn on Quiet nudges and pick a frequency.
Double-check your Preferred notification time and Quiet hours. A reminder you are waiting for may simply be scheduled for later in the day, or shifted past a quiet-hours window.
2. Check your device settings
If the permission was declined when you first installed Kinu, you will need to turn it back on from your device.
On iPhone
- Open the device Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap Kinu.
- Tap Notifications and make sure Allow Notifications is on.
- Confirm Background App Refresh is enabled. Kinu uses it to schedule reminders while the app is closed. You will find it under Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
On Android
- Open the device Settings app.
- Go to Apps > Kinu > Notifications.
- Make sure notifications are allowed and not set to Silent.
- Check that battery optimization is not restricting Kinu in the background. Many Android phones limit background activity by default, which can hold back scheduled reminders. Allow Kinu to run in the background, or exclude it from battery optimization.
3. Give it a fresh start
If everything above looks right and reminders still are not arriving, toggle the reminder type off and back on inside Kinu. That reschedules the upcoming reminders. Reopening the app also gives Kinu a chance to refresh its schedule.
Getting too many, or the wrong, reminders?
Kinu should never feel noisy. If it does, you have full control:
- Turn off any reminder type you do not want in Settings > Notifications.
- Set a person to Low energy or Paused to quiet reminders about them.
- Widen your Quiet hours so reminders only arrive when you want them.
- Lower your quiet-nudge frequency, or turn quiet nudges off entirely.
A note on privacy
Notifications are scheduled and delivered on your device. Kinu does not read your reminders or send the content of your moments, notes, or people anywhere as part of running the app. Your private notes are kept completely separate and are never used for reminders or anything else. You can read more in What we can and can't see.
Still not receiving notifications after working through this page? Contact support. Tell us your device type and OS version, and we will help you sort it out.