Listen to incoming Whatsapp messages/notifications
Solution 1
I was able to do this using Accessibility Service . Using this, you can listen to all notification on the notification bar. I listened to application-specification by adding the package name to the Accessibility Service service info
, which in this case was com.whatsapp
. I couldn't read the messages, but I get notified whenever a message arrives.
Solution 2
Aug 11, 2020 Update
You can use NotificationListenerService
to listen for notifications and get contents.
Here's example implementation in Java:
public class NotificationListener extends NotificationListenerService {
private static final String TAG = "NotificationListener";
private static final String WA_PACKAGE = "com.whatsapp";
@Override
public void onListenerConnected() {
Log.i(TAG, "Notification Listener connected");
}
@Override
public void onNotificationPosted(StatusBarNotification sbn) {
if (!sbn.getPackageName().equals(WA_PACKAGE)) return;
Notification notification = sbn.getNotification();
Bundle bundle = notification.extras;
String from = bundle.getString(NotificationCompat.EXTRA_TITLE);
String message = bundle.getString(NotificationCompat.EXTRA_TEXT);
Log.i(TAG, "From: " + from);
Log.i(TAG, "Message: " + message);
}
}
To enable the service insert the following code snippet into <application>
tag on AndroidManifest.xml:
<service
android:name=".NotificationListener"
android:label="@string/notification_listener_service"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SERVICE">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.service.notification.NotificationListenerService" />
</intent-filter>
</service>
To intercept notifications, you need to request a special permission. Here's the code which you can use to open settings page where user have to allow the app to listen to incoming notifications. On my project I placed it in MainActivity.onCreate
method.
startActivity(new Intent(ACTION_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SETTINGS))
If you need to check whether or not the notification listener permission is granted using the following code snippet:
private boolean isNotificationServiceEnabled(){
String pkgName = getPackageName();
final String flat = Settings.Secure.getString(getContentResolver(),
ENABLED_NOTIFICATION_LISTENERS);
if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(flat)) {
final String[] names = flat.split(":");
for (String name: names) {
final ComponentName cn = ComponentName.unflattenFromString(name);
if (cn != null) {
if (TextUtils.equals(pkgName, cn.getPackageName())) {
return true;
}
}
}
}
return false;
}
Old answer
I listened to incoming WhatsApp message notifications with the help of this 2 parted article which you can read it from here.
- Configure AndroidManifest.xml
<!-- AndroidManifest.xml -->
<service
android:name=".MyAccessibilityService"
android:enabled="true"
android:exported="true"
android:label="My application"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityService" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.accessibilityservice"
android:resource="@xml/serviceconfig" />
</service>
- Create a new file called
serviceconfig.xml
in /xml/ directory.
<!-- serviceconfig.xml -->
<accessibility-service
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:accessibilityEventTypes="typeAllMask"
android:accessibilityFeedbackType="feedbackAllMask"
android:accessibilityFlags="flagDefault"
android:canRequestEnhancedWebAccessibility="true"
android:notificationTimeout="100"
android:packageNames="@null"
android:canRetrieveWindowContent="true"
android:canRequestTouchExplorationMode="true" />
- Create a new
MyAccessibilityService
class which extendsAccessibilityService
.
@Override
protected void onServiceConnected() {
System.out.println("onServiceConnected");
AccessibilityServiceInfo info = new AccessibilityServiceInfo();
info.eventTypes = AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_NOTIFICATION_STATE_CHANGED;
info.feedbackType = AccessibilityServiceInfo.FEEDBACK_ALL_MASK;
info.notificationTimeout = 100;
info.packageNames = null;
setServiceInfo(info);
}
@Override
public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent event) {
if (event.getEventType() == AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_NOTIFICATION_STATE_CHANGED) {
if (event.getPackageName().toString().equals("com.whatsapp")){
StringBuilder message = new StringBuilder();
if (!event.getText().isEmpty()) {
for (CharSequence subText : event.getText()) {
message.append(subText);
}
// Message from +12345678
}
}
}
}
- It's ready. Now you can customize the service for your needs.
Note: Because accessibility services are able to explore and interact with on-screen content, a user has to explicitly enable services in Settings > Accessibility. More details
Note
To send replies to received notifications check out this answer.
Solution 3
Unless Developers of that app intentionally share a service , a content provider, or intentionally send out public broadcasts of events, or expose a custom broadcast registering system, there is no legitimate way in android to listen to internal workings of a third party App. App isolation is designed in Android for a very important reason: security.
Solution 4
Accessibility events only catch incoming notifications event, not when they are updated. For now, WhatsApp notifications don't display the message, only the sender. The message is then added by the WhatsApp app with an update, which can't be caught by the accessibility service.
You will only have something like "1 new message from XXX", but that may be sufficient to your needs.
Solution 5
See below example to catch whatsapp notifications:
public class Notifier extends AccessibilityService {
@Override
public void onCreate(){
//Toast.makeText(this,"Oncreate", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
@Override
protected void onServiceConnected() {
// Set the type of events that this service wants to listen to. Others
// won't be passed to this service.
Toast.makeText(this,"Service connected", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
AccessibilityServiceInfo info = new AccessibilityServiceInfo();
info.feedbackType = AccessibilityServiceInfo.FEEDBACK_ALL_MASK;;
info.eventTypes = AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_NOTIFICATION_STATE_CHANGED ;
// If you only want this service to work with specific applications, set their
// package names here. Otherwise, when the service is activated, it will listen
// to events from all applications.
info.packageNames = new String[] {"com.whatsapp"};
info.notificationTimeout = 100;
setServiceInfo(info);
}
@Override
public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent event) {
if(event.getEventType() == AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_NOTIFICATION_STATE_CHANGED) {
Toast.makeText(this,"Notification Catched", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}
}
And don't forget to set permission from settings>Accessibility in order to access the system events. Allow permission from settings .
check this link
sanjeev mk
Updated on July 22, 2021Comments
-
sanjeev mk almost 3 years
I'm working on a notification based app, for which I need to listen to incoming notifications. I've been able to listen to incoming calls, SMS, mail etc. I have no clue how to listen for pings or messages from friends on Whatsapp via code. Can this actually be done? If so, how? Can Accessibility Service be used for this, using Package Name as "com.whatsapp"?
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sanjeev mk over 11 yearsWell, I was able to do this using Accessibility Service. Check my answer. Thanks.
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frankish almost 11 yearsCan you mute whatsapp notification sound and set a custom notification according to the sender of the message?
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Bhavana Vadodariya over 10 years@frankish : Absolutely.......NO you can not show custom notification for different users, through your app, but to mute Whatsapp is impossible unless you have made whatsapp
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Erum over 9 years@sanjeev mk using accesbility code can i find either user has recieved messages or recieved images /audio files
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pola sai ram almost 9 yearsno .. if u recieve one message , then it will show that message .. if u receive 2 or more messages .. then it will show as u said
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John Alexander Betts about 8 years@sanjeev could you provide an example please? Thanks
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John Alexander Betts about 8 yearsWhat is the better way to do this?
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subrahmanya bhat over 7 yearsis there a way to read all messages from WhatsApp notification?
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Rizwan Ahmed about 7 years@Nicolas LUCAS can we get number message of sender?
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Aman Jain over 6 years@sanjeev can you please share your code how you have implemented this?
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Han over 6 years@RizwanAhmed yes you can. Whenever a message is delivered to your phone a meta is also sent. All of the information is contained in that meta including the phone number and the sender name. You can use a broadcast receiver to fetch that broadcast.
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Aimal Khan almost 5 yearsThe link is broken!
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Sunil Chaudhary about 4 yearsok so i have to get the deleted msg only, how to do that in your case it will fetch all incoming whatsapp msg
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TheMisir about 4 years@SunilChaudhary whatsapp hides notification if message was deleted so you can listen for notification state changes and detect if it dismissed by whatsapp or user. I'm not sure about that.
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Deepak Vajpayee almost 4 years@Han and how do we retrieve that meta. I mean which type of broadcast receiver do i have to register. Can you please explain a little more.
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newbieee almost 4 yearsI have implemented this but it only logs "message from XXX"
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TheMisir almost 4 years@newbieee I updated the answer with additional details, please check it
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Vijay over 3 yearsI'm using the notification listener service but I couldn't able to identify if the notification is from a group conversation or not in android 6 [API 23]. can you help me with this? Here is the detailed Question. stackoverflow.com/q/63913290/9944838
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TheMisir over 3 years@Vijay unfortunately I can't.
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Prototype over 3 yearsI am using notification service but problem is that after rebooting the device it does not start what i have to do please help me here is my code
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TheMisir over 3 years@prototype86 check out this stackoverflow.com/questions/58362719/…
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hassan moradnezhad over 3 yearsthanks. it works perfectly for me. is it possible to get a sent file link?
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TheMisir over 3 years@hassanmoradnezhad I'm not sure about that. But you can try decrypting whatsapp database (stackoverflow.com/questions/8856874/…). I'm not sure if this is legit or not but it might help to achieve what you're looking for.
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Maifee Ul Asad about 3 yearshere is the correct link : developer.android.com/reference/android/accessibilityservice/… , suggestion edit queue is full