Push notification preview

What a push notification preview shows

A push notification preview shows how your title and message will look on a phone before you send, and where the phone will cut them off. Phones don't show everything. An iPhone lock screen shows a line of title and about four lines of message. A collapsed Android notification shows one line of each. The rest appears only when someone presses or expands the notification, and most people never do.

This tool draws all four views side by side and counts how many characters of your text each one actually shows. It measures your words at the width of each phone, so "Hi Priya" and "Hi Venkatanarasimha" get different answers. That matters more than any fixed character limit.

How to preview a push notification

1. Type your app name, title and message. Add an image URL if it's a rich push.
2. Read the checks. They tell you where each phone cuts the text, whether every token has a fallback, and if the payload is too big.
3. Add a token from the chips under the message, such as {{first_name|there}}. The part after the bar is the fallback for users with no value.
4. Open "Preview your own user list" and paste a CSV. Step through users one by one, or jump to the ones whose titles get cut.
5. Open "Code for your CRM platform" to copy the title and message in your platform's syntax.
6. Download a PNG of the preview to share with your team or client.

Push notification character limits

Neither Apple nor Google publishes a character limit for push titles or messages. Apple's design guidelines say the system truncates long text itself. Android's docs say collapsed text is cut to one line. The only hard limit is the payload: 4,096 bytes for everything in the notification, including deep links and data. Every character count you've seen online is a vendor's guidance, and they disagree:

Source	iPhone	Android
Apple and Google	No character limit published. The system cuts long text (Apple HIG)	No character limit published. Collapsed text is cut to one line (Android developers)
Payload cap	4,096 bytes for the whole payload (Apple)	4,096 bytes (Firebase); 1,000 characters if sent from the Firebase console
Braze guidance	Lock screen about 160 characters, 130 with an image; banner 80, 65 with an image	Lock screen about 49; notification drawer about 597 (Braze)
CleverTap blog	Title 25 to 50, message about 150, about 178 in all	Title up to 65, message about 240 (CleverTap)
Airship blog	About 4 lines	About 50 characters collapsed, about 8 lines expanded (Airship)

The numbers differ because the cut depends on the phone's width, the font, the user's text size, the length of the app name and whether there's an image. That's why this tool measures your actual words instead of counting to a fixed number. A few rules hold everywhere:

• The first line does the work. Android shows one line of message until it's expanded. Put the reason to tap there.
• Titles are short. On an iPhone the title shares its line with the time. Three to six words is safe.
• Images take room. A thumbnail shortens the lines next to it, so a rich push shows fewer characters, not more.
• Hindi and other Indian scripts use more bytes. Each character takes three bytes, so long Hindi messages reach the 4 KB payload sooner. Test on a real phone too, because fonts differ by phone maker.

Push notification image size

Rich push images follow the same pattern: platform caps on file size, and vendor guidance on shape.

Rule	iPhone	Android	Source
File size	Images up to 10 MB (JPEG, PNG, GIF)	Up to 1 MB when sent through Firebase	Apple, Firebase
Shape	1:1 or 2:1	2:1	OneSignal
Pixel size	1038 by 1038, or 1024 by 512	1024 by 512; Airship suggests 720 by 360, at least 300 by 300	OneSignal, Airship
GIF	Animated GIFs work	Not supported by OneSignal or Braze on Android; send a still	OneSignal, Braze
Setup	Needs a Notification Service Extension in the app (mutable-content)	BigPictureStyle in the app, or the SDK does it	Apple, Android

A 1024 by 512 image (2:1) is the safest single choice for both phones. Keep text out of the image's edges, because each phone crops it a little differently, and keep the file under 1 MB.

Personalised push notifications

A personalised push swaps tokens for each user's own values: their name, city, last product, streak or plan. Every token needs a fallback, the line a user sees when their value is missing. "Hi {{first_name|there}}" becomes "Hi Priya" for Priya and "Hi there" for a profile with no name. Without the fallback, that user gets "Hi ," and you look careless to the people you most want back.

Names need cleaning too. Lists are full of blanks, "test", email addresses typed into the name field, full names and ALL CAPS. With Clean names on, the tool keeps the first word, fixes the capitals and gives junk the fallback. Here is the same first-name token in each platform's syntax:

Platform	First name with a fallback	Docs
CleverTap	{{ Profile.first_name | default:"there" }}	Push personalisation
MoEngage	{{UserAttribute['First Name']|default('there')}}	Jinja templating
Braze	{{${first_name} | default: 'there'}}	Default values
OneSignal	{{ first_name | default: "there" }} (from data tags)	Liquid syntax
WebEngage	Pick the attribute in the editor; no typed push syntax in the public docs	Personalisation

For more on tags, defaults and when to stop a send instead of using a fallback, see my guide to Liquid personalisation in CRM tools.

Personalisation from a custom list

Tokens work for one value at a time. The bigger wins come from a whole line written for each user from what they've done. That is too much logic for a campaign editor, so do it in a sheet:

1. Export the data. One row per user with their ID and the columns you need: days since last order, streak, last product, workouts this month.
2. Write the line per user. In a sheet, use formulas to pick a line from each user's numbers, with a fallback line when the data is thin. In this tool, the Smart line rules do the same: "if streak_days is above 7, use this line; otherwise, that one".
3. Upload it as a user property. Upload the file to your CRM platform as a user import. Each user now carries their own finished line, such as push_body.
4. Call the property in the campaign. The message field holds one token, such as {{ Profile.push_body | default:"..." }} in CleverTap, with a fallback for anyone outside the file.
5. Refresh it before each send. Behaviour changes. Re-upload the file so the lines match this week, not last month.

I ran CleverTap at Healthify, and we used this method across several journeys, including win-back for lapsed subscribers. Instead of one message with a dozen tags, we worked out each user's line in a sheet from what they had done (weight change, workout days, meals logged, app opens), with a fallback when the data was thin. We uploaded the lines as user properties and called them in push and WhatsApp. On the win-back journey, click-through went up 2.1x in India.

The tool does the middle steps for you. Load your list, set the Smart line rules, then Download CSV gives a file with the ID column your platform expects and the finished title and message for every user. Here's what each platform needs:

Platform	User ID column	File limits	Docs
CleverTap	identity	Up to 1 GB. New columns can become profile properties	CSV upload
MoEngage	A column mapped to ID	Under 150 MB, up to 100 columns; names are case-sensitive	CSV import
WebEngage	user_id, first column	Up to 200 MB; 25 custom attributes per data type	Upload user data
Braze	external_id	Up to 500 MB; new headers become custom attributes	CSV import

Mistakes that make push fail

Mistake	What the user sees	Fix
A token with no fallback	"Hi , your order..."	Give every token a fallback that reads naturally
Full names in the title	The title cut before the point	First name only, and test the longest names in your list
The point at the end	Android shows one line; the offer never appears	Lead with the reason to tap
Body numbers on the lock screen	Weight, balance or health data visible to anyone near the phone	Keep sensitive numbers inside the app
An image with no service extension	A plain notification on iPhone	Ask the app team to add the extension, then test
One message to everyone	Copy that fits nobody in particular	Compute a line per user and upload it as a property

One more for Android: on Android 13 and later, apps must ask for the notification permission, and on new installs notifications are off until the user says yes. Ask at a moment that makes sense, like after a first order, not on the first screen. See Android's notification permission guide.

Where push fits

Push is the cheapest channel an app has, and the easiest to wear out. Use it for timely, personal nudges, and move offers and long messages to WhatsApp or email. For ideas by trigger, see 40 push notification examples, each shown on both phones. For a countdown, carousel, rating or coloured push, build it in the push notification generator, which gives you the exact keys or fields for your platform. For the other channels, check WhatsApp messages in the WhatsApp template preview and SMS length in the SMS character counter, and compare the channels in WhatsApp, email and push statistics for India.

Want push, WhatsApp and email working together on repeat orders? Book a free call and I'll look at your journeys.

Sources: Apple, generating a remote notification, notifications HIG, notification attachments; Firebase, message types and images; Android, expandable notifications; guidance from Braze, CleverTap, Airship and OneSignal. Checked 16 October 2026.

Questions about push notifications

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