Google will let you change the notification swipe to dismiss direction in a future Android release

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Android Q is, without a doubt, a big release. While it’s not really big in terms of UI changes, contrary to Android releases like Android Pie, Android Oreo, or Android Nougat, it sure does bring a series of under-the-hood changes–some of which are clear improvements over Android Pie and others, well, not as much. Some changes are actually pretty divisive, as they might modify core Android behavior or might simply be seen as “change for the sake of change.” Android Q packs a lot of those divisive changes, whether for good or bad. One such change is how you can’t swipe in both directions to dismiss a notification anymore.

We’ve covered it in detail before, but in case you’re out of the loop, in Android Q you can only swipe right to dismiss a notification. Swiping left will instead reveal buttons to snooze or block a notification. Previously, in Android Pie, you could swipe either way, with a slower swipe revealing these buttons. This new behavior is very much unwelcome by certain users because of obvious reasons, but it seems that we’ll at least have the option to choose which side we can swipe to in an upcoming Android release, according to a Google Issue Tracker post.

It’s not immediately clear whether we’ll have this option on a future Android Q beta or if it will actually be rolled out in another Android release. And while this is definitely better, it’s probably not a good enough solution for detractors of this change. We’ll see how things pan out during the next few betas, but don’t expect this change to be totally reversed.