Why you're not getting notifications

Notifications fail quietly, and there are more switches involved than anyone expects. Work down in order: the later ones are pointless until the earlier ones are right.

1. Are you available?

If your status is Away or Do not disturb, you are not being told about chats, which is what those mean. Check the status next to your name.

If you use a rota, it may have set you away at the end of a shift.

2. Are they switched on in Talkfront?

Settings → Notifications. Check the event you expect is actually ticked. Worth a look even if you are sure, particularly if somebody turned things off during a busy week and forgot.

3. Has the browser been asked?

Browser notifications need permission, and it is asked once. If you dismissed that prompt, the answer was no and you will not be asked again.

The padlock in the address bar shows the current answer and lets you change it. See sound, volume and the browser’s permission.

4. Is your operating system allowing them?

This is the one people miss, because it is nothing to do with Talkfront.

macOS Focus and Windows Focus assist suppress notifications from everything, including browsers, and both turn themselves on in circumstances you may not remember choosing: screen sharing, presenting, or an evening schedule.

Check there before concluding anything is broken.

5. Is the panel actually open?

The in-app sound and count need Talkfront open in a tab. If you have closed it, the desktop app is the answer: it is the same inbox and it can reach you when a browser tab cannot.

6. Is it email you are expecting?

Missed-chat emails are deliberately not instant, and they are for chats nobody answered rather than every chat. If nothing at all arrives by email, I’m not receiving emails covers the separate causes, starting with the spam folder.

Still nothing

Ask a colleague to start a chat while you watch. Knowing whether nothing happened, or something happened and you missed it, halves the problem immediately.

Last updated 22 September 2026.