Stand-up or break reminders not working on Android? How to fix it

Short answer: when an hourly reminder never shows up, shows up late or floods in all at once, the app is usually fine. Android is holding the alarm back to save battery. Check these five settings in order.

1. Notifications are allowed for the app

Open Settings → Apps → your reminder app → Notifications and make sure they are on. On Android 13 and later the app has to ask for this permission, and it is easy to tap "Don't allow" during setup.

2. "Alarms & reminders" is allowed

Normal background alarms can be delayed by up to an hour on recent Android versions. An hourly reminder that arrives 50 minutes late is useless. Settings → Apps → Special app access → Alarms & reminders lets an app fire on the exact minute. Since Android 14 this is off by default for newly installed apps.

3. Battery usage is "Unrestricted"

Settings → Apps → your app → Battery (or App battery usage) → Unrestricted. Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and other brands add their own "sleeping apps" lists on top of this. Remove the app from those lists too.

4. The notification sound or vibration is actually on

Many people say reminders "don't work" when they arrive silently. Check the app's notification channel: importance should be high, with sound or vibration. A single short vibration is easy to miss at a desk; two long pulses are not.

5. The schedule is what you think it is

If reminders only run during work hours, check the work days, the start and end time, and whether a lunch break or a "done for today" pause is active. A night shift that ends the next morning needs an app that understands shifts crossing midnight.

How Standly handles this

Standly always shows the time of the next nudge on its Today screen, so you can see the reminder is set. If notifications are off it says so and gives a one-tap fix, and it offers a shortcut to "Alarms & reminders" so hourly nudges arrive on time. Nudges are re-scheduled after a restart or time zone change, and you can choose silent, vibrate (two long pulses) or sound.

Why do my reminders work for a few days and then stop?

Android puts apps you have not opened recently into stricter battery buckets. Their background alarms get delayed more and more. Letting the app run unrestricted in battery settings usually fixes it.

Why do reminders arrive in a burst when I open the app?

The system held them back while the phone was idle and released them together when the app woke up. Exact alarms and an unrestricted battery setting prevent this.

Do reminders survive a phone restart?

Only if the app re-schedules them at boot. A good reminder app does this automatically; if yours does not, open it once after restarting.