Notifications

Saddle keeps you posted on barn activity and safety updates two ways: push notifications on your device, and an in-app notification list you can open anytime. The bell icon at the top of your main screens — the Barn, Horse, and Profile tabs — shows a badge with your unread count and opens the list.

What you get notified about

Barn activity — sent to everyone at the barn:

Someone shares a new post
Someone adds a trail to the barn
A new event is created
A new member joins

Barn membership:

Someone requests to join your barn (barn owners only — you can accept or decline right from the notification)
Your own request to join a barn is approved
A member leaves or is removed (barn owners only)

Safety:

Someone invites you to be their safety contact

Every notification arrives both as a push notification and in your in-app list. See Safety for how safety sharing works.

Open your notifications

Tap the bell. The Notifications sheet slides up to half height — drag it up for a full-screen view, or drag down (or tap outside it) to close. Pull down inside the list to refresh.

Each notification shows the barn or sender, what happened, when, and a thumbnail where there's something to preview — a post's photo, a trail's map, an event's details.

Act on a notification

Join requests: tap Accept or Decline directly on the notification.
Posts, trails, and events: tap the notification to open that post, trail, or event.
Safety contact invites: tap to open your Ride Safety settings and respond.
Everything else (like "someone joined the barn"): tapping simply marks it as read.

Clear notifications

Swipe left on any notification and tap Dismiss to mark it read and remove it from the list.
Tap Mark all as read at the top of the list to clear everything at once.
When your list is empty, you'll see "All caught up!"

Notifications don't pile up forever — ones you've read are cleaned up after about 30 days, and everything is cleared after about 90 days.

Turn notifications on or off

Device permission. When you first sign in, your phone asks whether Saddle can send notifications. If you declined and changed your mind, enable notifications for Saddle in your phone's settings. The Permissions row on the Profile tab shows what's currently granted.

In-app alerts. To quiet banners and sounds while you're using the app:

Open the Profile tab.
Under Preferences, find Notification alerts ("Banners and sounds in the app").
Turn the switch off.

This silences pop-up banners and sounds while the app is open. Notifications still collect in your notification list, and your phone still shows notifications normally when the app is in the background — use your phone's settings to control those.

Notifications while offline

Without a connection, the unread badge is hidden (the count can't update), but the bell still works. Opening the sheet shows a Changes pending summary of anything you've done offline that's waiting to upload — horses, barns, posts, rides, events — with a Sync now button for when you're back in range. Your notifications load again once you're online, and push notifications you missed arrive when your connection returns.

See Offline use and syncing for how offline changes work.

Tips

The badge caps at 99+ — time for Mark all as read.
You never get notified about your own activity; posting to your barn notifies everyone else, not you.
If you ride with a safety group, keep notifications enabled on your phone so safety invites reach you right away.