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OpenClaw can ping you when something needs your attention — in the browser that runs the Control UI, or through native macOS notifications when you use the OpenClaw macOS app. Everything lives under Settings → Notifications: enable the current device, check its status, and send yourself a test. This page covers those two surfaces. It does not control channel reaction notifications, Android notification forwarding, or iOS background push — the mobile apps register for push through their own node paths; see iOS and Nodes.

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Which surface you get

What the Notifications page controls depends on where you opened it: The macOS app deliberately uses the native permission flow instead of browser push — that is the notification system your Mac already respects.

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Enable browser notifications

  1. Open the Control UI in a browser that supports service workers, PushManager, and notifications.
  2. Make sure the Control UI is connected to the Gateway.
  3. Open Settings → Notifications and select Enable notifications.
  4. Allow notifications when the browser asks.
  5. Select Send test — a test notification should arrive within a few seconds.
Behind the scenes, enabling creates a push subscription in this browser and registers its endpoint and keys with the Gateway. The Gateway keeps browser subscriptions and its VAPID signing key in state/openclaw.sqlite — there is no openclaw.json key to edit. When the Control UI reconnects, existing subscriptions are reconciled with the Gateway automatically. Send test asks the Gateway to push a test message to every registered browser subscription. Unsubscribe removes the current browser’s endpoint from the Gateway, then unsubscribes locally.

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Enable notifications in the macOS app

  1. Open Settings → Notifications in the OpenClaw macOS app.
  2. Select Enable notifications while the permission shows Not requested.
  3. Approve the macOS permission prompt.
  4. Select Send test to post a local OpenClaw notification.
If the permission shows Denied, macOS will not re-prompt: select Open System Settings, allow notifications for OpenClaw there, and switch back — the page rechecks permission when the app regains focus. This permission belongs to macOS, not to Gateway config.

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Troubleshooting

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Enable is unavailable

Either the browser lacks the required Web Push APIs or the Control UI is not connected to the Gateway. Try a current browser, confirm the Gateway connection, and reload the page.

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Browser permission is blocked

A denied browser permission cannot be reopened from the page. Allow notifications for the Control UI origin in the browser’s site settings, then reload Settings.

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Service worker is not ready

The Control UI waits up to 10 seconds for its service worker. If that times out right after an update, hard-refresh the page. If an old worker sticks around, clear site data for the dashboard origin and reconnect.

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Web Push asks for a Doctor migration

Run openclaw doctor --fix with the Gateway stopped. Web Push refuses to use the retired JSON stores until Doctor imports them into SQLite.