Getting around Pushbullet's removal of notification mirroring


Updates to Pushbullet over the past few months have removed the primary feature I was utilizing it for: notification sync across Android devices. Seeing as the Pushbullet devs aren't planning on restoring this feature anytime soon, I've rigged up a workaround that pushes over the notifications I need, without having to revert to an older version of Pushbullet. It's imperfect, but gets the job done for me.

Apparently the developers removed this Pushbullet feature because too many people found it buggy and it didn't work with their new SMS system. Alas, since their changelog didn't mention the feature's removal, I spent a good hour or so trying to troubleshoot before I stumbled across the Reddit thread stating it was officially removed. I typically carry 2 phones, one of which is tied to an Android Wear device. Syncing the notifications lets me see when I receive a text or email to the accounts on my non-watch device, even though both phones are silenced all day. If you prefer to maintain the complete mirroring feature, you can revert to the last version with notification sync at apkmirror. If you're okay with getting setup with one way notification pushes on the latest version of Pushbullet, continue on below...

This setup is a combination of Tasker, Pushbullet, Push Tasker, and AutoNotification. You'll need all 4 apps installed to start.

  1. Create a new profile in Tasker
  2. Set the trigger to Event > Plugin > AutoNotification > Intercept
  3. Edit the configuration for the AutoNotification Intercept
  4. Set Action Type to "created"
  5. Select Apps and choose the apps you want to forward notifications for
  6. Scroll down and select "Get All Fields"
  7. Complete the configuration by tapping the checkmark at the top of the screen. Your configuration should look something like the one below. (I selected Messenger as the only app whose notifications I wanted to act on)
  8. Go back to the profiles screen
  9. Create a new task associated with this profile
  10. Add an Action > Plugin > Push Tasker
  11. Edit the configuration for the Push Tasker
  12. Pick "Note"
  13. If it prompts you to connect Push Tasker to your account, proceed and get it an access token, 
  14. Pick the device (or devices) that you want the notification to push to
  15. Set Title to %antitle and Message to %antext to pull the title and text from the original notification
  16. Press OK and back all the way out to the profile screen. Test your new forwarding by generating a notification from the desired apps on the current device. The notification should get pushed as a note to your other device(s).
If everything is working correctly, you'll get a notification looking something like this:

Unfortunately you can't remotely clear the pushed notifications because this is only a one way push. I'm looking into sending an ID# across and identifying it so that notifications can be remotely cleared, but it would be a bit more involved. I'm hoping that the Pushbullet devs will bring the sync feature back before too long. Hopefully this can help out someone else with a similar use case to my own. For now this is getting the notifications I need across from one phone to another.

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