How to send a silent Push Notification payload

There are a few options for it! Let’s take a small ride to understand all the different payloads and their usage.

---

Simple Payload

Displayed in Notification Center : Yes

Wakes app to perform background task : No

{
    "aps" : {
        "alert" : "You received simple notification!",
        "badge" : 1,
        "sound" : "default"
    }
}

---

Payload With Custom Notification Sound

Displayed in Notification Center : Yes

Wakes app to perform background task : No

Step 1 : Add custom notification sound file (.wav or .aiff extensions only. e.g. notification.wav) in your app bundle.

Step 2 : Configure your payload as shown below to play your custom sound

{
    "aps" : {
        "alert" : "It's a custom notification sound!",
        "badge" : 1,
        "sound" : "notification.wav"
    }
}

---

Notification With Custom Payload

Displayed in Notification Center : Yes

Wakes app to perform background task : No

{
    "aps" : {
        "alert" : "It's a notification with custom payload!",
        "badge" : 1,
        "content-available" : 0         
    },
    "data" :{
        "title" : "Game Request",
        "body" : "Bob wants to play poker",
        "action-loc-key" : "PLAY"
    },

}

Here the data dictionary holds custom information whatever you want. It will also display as normal notification with the alert message “It’s a notification with custom payload!”.

---

Normal Silent Notification

It will not a show an alert as a notification bar; it will only notify your app that there is some new data available, prompting the app to fetch new content.

Displayed in Notification center : No

Awake app to perform background task : Yes

{
    "content-available" : 1
}

---

Silent Notification With Custom Payload

Here comes the magic to show a notification alert as well awake your app in background for a task! (Note: only if it’s running in background and has not been killed explicitly by the user.)
Just add the extra parameter "content-available" : 1 in your payload.

Displayed in Notification Center : Yes

Wakes app to perform background task : Yes

{
    "aps" : {
        "alert" : "Notification with custom payload!",
        "badge" : 1,
        "content-available" : 1
    },
     "data" :{
        "title" : "Game Request",
        "body" : "Bob wants to play poker",
        "action-loc-key" : "PLAY"
     }
}

---

Use any of these payloads according to your app requirements. For background app refresh refer to Apple’s documentation. I hope this gives you all the necessary information. Happy coding 🙂