There are only a few things that everyone thinks are annoying, and those toolkit popup notifications on Android are one of them. You may be playing a multiplayer game and you suddenly get interrupted by the often useless notifications.
These messages often come from your network provider, and they’re delivered via the SIM toolkit app on your device. Some network providers have apps that they use to deliver these notifications, but the result is the same level of annoyance.
If you’re tired of enduring the interruptions caused by these notifications, this article is here to help. Here, you’ll learn how to disable toolkit popup notifications on Android smartphones, regardless of your network provider.
What Is the SIM Toolkit App?
When you insert your SIM into your phone, you should see the SIM toolkit app appear. This app is preinstalled into your SIM card and is designed to run mini-applications over your GSM network.
Most network operators use it as a means to push value-added services to users. You can send commands to your network provider from the SIM toolkit app to receive notifications about the status of your requests.
The SIM toolkit looks almost the same across all Android devices and SIM cards since it’s built on a very specific template. While the SIM toolkit app is loaded with a lot of features, people rarely ever open their SIM toolkit apps.
The primary reason why people are forced to care about this rather neglected app is the fact that your network provider can use it to send you notifications. Since it runs in the background constantly, the notification can tear through any apps you’re running.
This is why you see frequent notifications from your SIM toolkit app. You don’t have to keep up with them, however; there are plenty of ways to do away with the annoying notifications from this app, and you need to read on to find out.
Can You Disable the SIM Toolkit App?
Before going into the specifics of how to disable the annoying notifications, it’s essential to address this misconception. Since you can stop the activity of most of your phone’s apps by simply disabling them, most people think it’s possible to also disable the SIM toolkit app on their phones.
However, that is just impossible. Just like most built-in applications on your smartphone, the SIM toolkit app will always stay on your phone as long as you have a SIM card inside of it. In addition to that, it will constantly run in the background to enable instant notification popups.
While you can remove the app by rooting your smartphone, you shouldn’t. Rooting your smartphone exposes you to a lot of security risks that are far more damaging than having notifications interrupt your movie.
Also, the SIM toolkit app takes very little space and occupies a minute part of your device’s memory. Removing it can lead to a whole lot of complications that you don’t want to face while using your smartphone.
How to Disable Toolkit Popup Notifications on Android
At this juncture, it’s pretty clear that you’ll have to live with the SIM toolkit app on your Android smartphone forever. The best you can do to lessen its annoyances is disabling its notifications, and fortunately, that’s very possible.
The steps for disabling these notifications vary across different network providers, but there is a general pattern that most providers follow. Here are the steps required to disable the popup notifications from the SIM toolkit on most Android smartphones.
- Open the SIM toolkit app on your smartphone.
Before starting this activity, you must ensure that you have the correct SIM installed on your smartphone. Then, find the SIM toolkit app for that specific SIM. If your phone has a dual SIM card slot, there are usually two of those apps to choose from.
Alternatively, both of the apps will be bundled into a single app, which you can open to select what SIM you’re trying to manage.
- Select the management option.
This option will vary in name according to your network provider. However, all providers build it into their SIM toolkits under a specific name. You can control most of the functions relating to the SIM toolkit for that specific SIM from this option on the phone.
If you’re on an Airtel SIM, the option will be called Airtel Live; it is BSNL Buzz Service on BSNL, and it goes by the name FLASH for Vodafone users. Before continuing, it’s important to find what yours is and select it.
- Deactivate the service.
The rest is simple from here on out. Once you determine the specific management option from the options on your SIM toolkit app, you’ll see clear steps to disable the app completely. The steps might differ slightly based on your network provider, but you don’t even need much help.
For Airtel, you’ll find an option with “Start/Stop.” Select this option and proceed to select “Stop” from the resulting screen to deactivate the service.
On most other network providers, however, you’ll only need to select the “Activation” option. On the resulting screen, you’ll see an option to deactivate the service, select it and you shouldn’t ever have to deal with those annoying notifications anymore.
If you’re finding it difficult to navigate to the correct option that lets you deactivate the service, you can text a message to a specified number to stop it manually.
If your SIM pack came with a manual, there should be clear instructions to opt-out of annoying notification popups, and there’s no better time to make use of those.
Conclusion
It seems pretty easy to disable the toolkit pop-up notification on Android. It’s actually very easy, as long as you know where to look. The steps are pretty straightforward, and for obvious reasons, also well hidden.
This article helps you dig them out. Regardless of your network provider, you’ll find a way to disable those annoying notifications plaguing your Android smartphone experience here.