# Alerts Ways you can stay up to date with information! # ntfy

Notifications! Some people love 'em, some people hate 'em.

## Get Notified! With our phones playing such a huge role in how we administer our lives, the notifications we receive can sometimes be vital to staying up-to-date with our own needs (or, at least, the needs on our attention). Enter [**ntfy**](https://ntfy.sh), a service that allows you to send custom notifications, and listen to multiple channels where others might be updating information. ## How it Works All you have to do is either [download the app](https://docs.ntfy.sh/) and subscribe to a (new or existing) topic on a server or enter that topic's URL (which will just be `https://ntfy.sh/[topic]`) in a web browser.

The default server is ntfy.sh, free and usable by anyone, but you can create your own or subscribe to someone else's!

The app listens to topics and uses your phone's standard notification service (the same one used for, for example, recieving a text message). The web URL requires **no** installation and just let's you listen to topics while you have the page open.
Example Android notification
## What it Does Every time a message is posted to the topic, anyone listening to that topic will get a message or notification (depending on how they're listening). Notifications can be differentiated with [emoji tags](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#tags-emojis), contain [pictures](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#attachments), be [clickable](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#click-action) (leading you to another link), and contain [buttons](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#action-buttons) that perform other actions. They can also be [scheduled](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#scheduled-delivery) to be delivered at a future date, and contain an [Android broadcast](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#send-android-broadcast) to instruct other parts of your device to do something! ## Oh the Possibilities To get started, [try it on your phone](https://docs.ntfy.sh/subscribe/phone/). There are so many uses! Here's just a few: 1. Send yourself an alert in an hour as a reminder to drink some water. 2. Set up hourly reminders to drink water throuhout the day. 3. Send a notification to a group of users that a new blog post has been created. 4. Update everyone on a project that the deadline has been moved up. 5. Use a sensor in your mailbox to trigger an alert that your mail has been delivered. 6. Teach your kids' phone to send an alert when their battery gets too low so you can see it and remind them to plug in their phone. 7. Publish a notification for certain [emails](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#e-mail-publishing) (by forwarding them), like: - Bringing messages from an important sender to your attention faster. - Turning delivery notification emails into phone notifications. 8. Receive new meeting invite requests as a notification. 9. Subscribe to a support channel to get instant updates when a service goes down. 10. Create a panic button to instantly send a notification with your GPS coordinates to others listening on the same channel, letting them know you need help. The list goes on and on... ### Advanced Usage You can use ntfy with [`curl`](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#__tabbed_1_1) and [HTTP](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#__tabbed_1_3) requests as well as correctly formatted [URLs](https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/#__tabbed_10_1), meaning you can create lots of automation opportunities with things like `cron` jobs, [IFTTT](https://ifttt.com/), [n8n](https://n8n.io/), [Tasker](https://tasker.joaoapps.com/), etc. > I even saw an example of a smart toaster that was capable of making an API call when the toast popped up so the user could get alerted in the other room that the toast was ready. > > I saw another case where someone put RFID tags in the bridles of their horses and a reader outside the gate so they'd get notified of which horse had just escaped.