feat: Add push notification support for expo

[TheNerdGuyLulu]

Why?

Towards https://github.com/intercom/intercom/issues/328801

[uddish]

Nice one!

[josh-]

we're eagerly awaiting this feature! if it would be possible to release a new version with this included in the next few days that would be super appreciated 🙏

[yonitou]

This is Christmas :D
Just one question though : why are you asking to add this snippet to infoPlist ?

      "infoPlist": {
        "NSCameraUsageDescription": "This is just a sample text to access the Camera",
        "NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription": "This is just a sample text to access the Photo Library"
      }

For me, we don't need it to use push notifications

[Br1an-Boyle]

@yonitou 👋🏻
On iOS, we now have the ability to select your camera in the message composer. It uses the camera API, therefore you will need to provide the NSCameraUsageDescription in your info.plist otherwise your app will get rejected from the AppStore.
You can ignore the NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription.

[yonitou]

Okay didn't know about that ! Maybe you could add it to the readme so people know why they're adding these new permissions ? (it's not always obvious :D)
Thanks

[yonitou]

I also notice that in this PR, you're saying that there's no "deep links support". What does that mean exactly ?

• Can I still handle deep links contained in push notifications manually (by looking at the uri property in the push notification) ?
• Can I still use Intercom.handlePushMessage() to open a push notification message ?
• Can I still use IntercomAutoIntegratePushNotifications to disable automatic integration of push notifications ?

[Br1an-Boyle]

@yonitou I'll need to get clarification on that.

[yonitou]

Alright :) keep me/us in touch. We'll need these infos to update to the last intercom version (we are currently stuck to v4 with the old config plugin 😅)

[TheNerdGuyLulu]

Hi @yonitou,
deep link is supported with expo, though it's not yet documented how to configure it.
Using app.json / app.config.js, we need to add the necessary configurations. You can take a look here on how to configure app links for android as an example.

Also the following example creates a custom uri.

"ios": {
      "infoPlist": {
        "CFBundleURLTypes": [
          {
            "CFBundleURLSchemes": ["myapp"]
          }
        ]
      }
}

[yonitou]

Hi
Thanks for your answer.
My app is already configured for deep linking with expo. :)
My question was about the fact you put "Deep links are not supported yet" in your PR.
Does that mean that intercom push notifications that contain deep links won't work as excepted ? If so, how can we handle push messages for example (when having a chat between a client and an Intercom agent) ?

[nekode-dev]

Thanks for this feature, the timing on this was perfect for us and our use case! 🙌🏻

Tested on iOS and it works fantastically. However, testing on Android has proved to not be working. Taking a look at this PR, it looks like you have only implemented the config-plugin for iOS and not Android unless I am mistaken?

I have run npx expo prebuild --clean and can see the code mods have been applied for iOS but not Android to confirm the above.

Am I possibly missing something, or is Android support still to come?

Thanks!

[josh-]

Similar to @nekode-dev, can confirm that iOS is working great here but so far we've been unable to get push notifications working on Android.

@TheNerdGuyLulu is there anything extra we need to do in order to get Android working?

[Br1an-Boyle]

Hi @josh- @nekode-dev 👋🏻
Thanks for your feedback about Android push. Just to let you know that we'll be picking this up next week and we will look into the problem.
Thanks for your patience.

[yonitou]

Hi !

@Br1an-Boyle : except the discussion happening about the Android part (which is quite important for us to use your expo plugin), did you get some clarifications about the do and don't regarding push notfications setup and deep linking (especially for people who come from the old plugin with intercom v4) ? That would be really helpful to get ready and understand what works or not !

[TheNerdGuyLulu]

Hi @josh- @yonitou,

I created a new expo project from scratch. The push notifications works fine for me. For this test I enabled the notifications permission directly from the android settings, but while developing the plugin I used the react-native-permissions and also fine.

I'm happy to jump on a call to try to sort it out.

[yonitou]

Thanks !
I think it will be easier for @josh- to test it to confirm since he already upgraded Intercom SDK (it's not our case yet since a lot of things rely on the old version). @josh- Can you confirm that it's working?

[josh-]

Thanks very much for verifying and the offer to jump on a call @TheNerdGuyLulu, however since we need to support badging the app icon when receiving a notification (and this isn't supported by intercom) we've instead moved to listening to Intercom webhooks and sending our own notifications.

[yonitou]

So looks like that this thread can be closed if everything works as expected ? @TheNerdGuyLulu, what about deep links setup in push notifications ?

[yonitou]

Hi

I'm updating this thread because I still have questions about push notifications and deep link support and especially, the differences between the old plugin and the new one.
In the old plugin, I needed to setup everything I'm listing below and I need to know what should I keep, remove or update by installing the new one :

• I needed a specific Android channel for notifications

Notifications.setNotificationChannelAsync("intercom_chat_replies_channel", {
					description: "Channel for intercom replies",
					importance: Notifications.AndroidImportance.MAX,
					name: "Intercom Replies Channel"
				});

• I needed to add to my infoPlist this key to manually handle push notifications for iOS :

IntercomAutoIntegratePushNotifications: "NO"

• I needed to manually intercept intercom notifications to handle deep links and messages manually

const payload = (lastNotificationResponse?.notification?.request?.trigger as any)?.payload;
		if (payload?.icm_cid) {
			setCurrentIntercomNotification({ data: payload?.icm_cid, type: "message" });
		}
		if (payload?.uri) {
			setCurrentIntercomNotification({ data: payload?.uri, type: "deeplink" });
		}

• The function Intercom.handlePushMessage() was only working on Android. Not in iOS

Can I have some help/explanations about that ? I carefully read the repository documentation but I don't know if it's exhaustive or not

Thanks !

[uddish]

Hey @yonitou 👋
Did you face any issues with push notifications following what was there in our readme?
I don't think you need to take any extra steps for it to work.

[yonitou]

I was waiting for your answer before updating my plugin. I can try with your readme but I still don't understand how should I handle deep links ? Is it going to be managed by the handlePushMessage function ? Or is it going to be automatically handled ? (In my app, I need to wait for the authentication to finish to handle custom deep links, this is why I'm asking)

[uddish]

Hey @yonitou
You should be able to use deeplinks as described in the documentation here.
Can you please try adding the configuration as described above and let us know if you are facing any issue?

As for waiting for the authentication to finish, I don't think we have an interceptor method in our plugin yet but I would have to get back to you on this.

Thanks for being patient 😄

[yonitou]

Thx
Do you think that my previous setup could still work ?

const payload = (lastNotificationResponse?.notification?.request?.trigger as any)?.payload;
		if (payload?.icm_cid) {
			setCurrentIntercomNotification({ data: payload?.icm_cid, type: "message" });
		}
		if (payload?.uri) {
			setCurrentIntercomNotification({ data: payload?.uri, type: "deeplink" });
		}

I didn't use any interceptor but I blocked the notification with expo-notifications package, read the data inside and navigated manually instead. It was quite hacky but worked :D

[uddish]

Yes, I think it could but it would be best to test it out first 😄

[yonitou]

I just tried to install the new plugin following the readme :

• The builds are working and the app is launching.
• The Intercom.handlePushMessage doesn't work at all on Android.
• On iOS, it's opening the message right away even if I'm not using "Intercom.handlePushMessage". This is the reason I used before IntercomAutoIntegratePushNotifications: "NO"
• Deeplinks are correctly received on iOS & Android
• However, they are working on iOS (even if the app is killed) but on Android, they are not working at all
• I didn't test universal links yet

Any idea ?

PS : FYI, I have a working setup for deep links and universal links for Android & iOS with Expo & React Navigation for one year now so I don't think it's related to it.

[yonitou]

Here's what I need to do to handle push notifications & deep links the same way for Android & iOS with "@intercom/intercom-react-native": "^7.2.1":

• Add IntercomAutoIntegratePushNotifications: "NO" in my iOS infoPlist
• Delete all Intercom.handlePushMessage() occurrences
• Add the snippet below in my navigation container

import { useLastNotificationResponse } from "expo-notifications";

const lastNotificationResponse = useLastNotificationResponse();

	useEffect(() => {
		if (
			status === Auth.LOGGED_IN &&
			appState === ApplicationState.ACTIVE &&
			currentIntercomNotification
		) {
			currentIntercomNotification?.type === "message"
				? Intercom.presentContent(
					IntercomContent.conversationWithConversationId(currentIntercomNotification?.data?.toString())
					)
				: setDeepLink(currentIntercomNotification.uri);
			setCurrentIntercomNotification(null);
		}
	}, [ status, appState, currentIntercomNotification]);

	useEffect(() => {
		const data =
			Platform.OS === "ios"
					lastNotificationResponse?.notification?.request?.trigger?.payload
				: lastNotificationResponse?.notification?.request?.content?.data;
		if (
			(Platform.OS === "ios" && !!data?.intercom_push_type) ||
			(Platform.OS === "android" && data?.receiver === "intercom_sdk")
		) {
			setCurrentIntercomNotification({
				type: data?.uri ? "deeplink" : "message",
				data: data?.uri || data?.icm_cid || data?.conversation_id
			});
		}
	}, [lastNotificationResponse]);

I tried on a real iOS device and on an Android simulator.
I'm quite disappointed tbh regarding this big update after 1 year of using the old plugin. Do you have better ideas @uddish ?

[yonitou]

Up :)

[raffiot]

Hello!
I'm having the same issues, everything works well on iOS but on Android my push notifications are not working.
Here is my project configuration:

// app.config.ts

{
  expo: {
    android: {
      googleServicesFile: './google-services.json',
      ...
    },
    plugins: [
      [
        '@intercom/intercom-react-native',
        {
          iosApiKey: process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_INTERCOM_IOS_API_KEY,
          androidApiKey: process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_INTERCOM_ANDROID_API_KEY,
          appId: process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_INTERCOM_APP_ID,
          intercomRegion: 'US',
        },
      ],
    ]
  }
}

// package.json
{
  "dependencies": {
    "@intercom/intercom-react-native": "^7.2.1",
    "expo": "^51.0.0",
    "react-native": "0.74.5",
    ...
  }
}

Configuration in Intercom settings

Our setup was working previously with our own custom plugin.

[edwinw6]

We're running into the same issue as mentioned above by @raffiot. Notifications are working on iOS, but not on Android.

Reproducing this issue

1. Create a fresh Expo app
   npx create-expo-app@latest
2. Install additional packages
   npx expo install expo-notifications @intercom/intercom-react-native
3. Add ./google-services.json file (download from firebase)
4. Update app.json:

// app.json
{
  "expo": {
    "android": {
      "package": "com.push-test",  // <-- Make sure to use the same package in Firebase and Intercom!
      "googleServicesFile": "./google-services.json"
    },
    "plugins": [
      "expo-router",
      "expo-notifications",
      [
        "@intercom/intercom-react-native",
        {
          "appId": "XXX",
          "androidApiKey": "android_sdk-XXX",
          "iosApiKey": "ios_sdk-XXX",
          "intercomRegion": "US"
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

5. Setup Intercom credentials in app.json and upload the service account key in the Intercom messenger settings. Make sure to use the correct app bundle id (com.push-test in this case).
6. Add the Intercom plugin to the app

// app/_layout.tsx
useEffect(() => {
  if (loaded) {
    SplashScreen.hideAsync();
      
    // Add these two lines:
    Intercom.loginUnidentifiedUser();
    Intercom.setLauncherVisibility(Visibility.VISIBLE);
  }
}, [loaded]);

7. Build and run the app on Android
8. Start a new conversation, close the app to the background and reply from Intercom
9. No push notification will be shown to the user

---

Cause of the problem

The cause of this, we've found, is in the payload of the notification that's being sent by Intercom. We were able to troubleshoot this by logging the incoming notifications:

import * as Notifications from "expo-notifications"

// Log incoming notifications while app is in the foreground:
Notifications.addNotificationReceivedListener((notification) => {
  console.log(notification)
})

Looking at these logs, we noticed the notification key is missing. Look at this example notification, sent by Intercom:

// Notification sent by Intercom (not working -- pruned for readability)
{
  "request": {
    "trigger": {
      "remoteMessage": {
        "notification": null,     // <-- Note that notification is null!
        "data": {
          "body": "Andrea: test!",
          "intercom_push_type": "notification",
          "receiver": "intercom_sdk",
          "message": "Andrea: test!",
          "message_data": "{\"type\":\"text\",\"message\":\"test!\"}",
          [...]
        },
      },
      "channelId": null,
      "type": "push"
    },
    [...]
    },
    "identifier": "."
  },
  "date": 1728994080388
}

We found the notification is null. Other notifications that work fine (originating from Expo), we see that the notification key is set:

// Notification sent by Expo (working -- pruned for readability)
{
  "request": {
    "trigger": {
      "remoteMessage": {
        "notification": {
          "title": "test",
          "body": "test message",   //  <-- In this case the title and body are repeated in the notification object
          [...]
        },
        "data": {
          "message": "test message",
          "title": "test",
        },
        [...]
      },
      "channelId": null,
      "type": "push"
    },
    [...]
  },
  "date": 1728993752955
}

---

Solution

From our investigation we found that the notifications sent from Intercom (specifically for Android) are sent as data-only notifications. These will be delivered silently. For this to work as expected, Intercom will need to make a change in their backend in order to send notification-type notifications. This can be simply done by repeating the content (body) inside of the notification object.

Pinging @Br1an-Boyle @uddish: Could you confirm this is indeed an issue? And if so, chance you can bring this up internally?

Further reading:

• https://docs.expo.dev/versions/latest/sdk/notifications/#background-notifications
• https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/concept-options
• https://rnfirebase.io/messaging/usage#notifications

[raffiot]

Thanks a lot @edwinw6 for this awesome message digging into it! 🤩

I shared it with the customer support and this is their response

I’ve heard back from our team and can confirm that we’re adding this issue to our backlog.
For greater context, our product team prioritizes bugs based on the severity of the issue and how widespread of an experience it is with customers. To provide insight on expectations, issues like this may not be actioned for some weeks.
This timeline is based on the team's current existing log of issues and upcoming feature releases which is subject to change.

So I imagine we won't hear from them for some time for such an important feature as push notification... I'll let you know when I have more informations from them.

[edwinw6]

Great! Perhaps if we all raise this issue with their customer support, we can get this prioritised.

[yonitou]

Hey
I don't know how is that possible but with the snippets & the setup I shared above, the notifications are working on Android (I'm handling them manually though) but the notifications are showing up on the device which means they are not data-only. What kind of notifications did you send in your tests ?

[olarra]

I face the same issue with push notifications on Android. The problem occurs when the app is in a quit state; the notification is not shown at all. In the background state, notifications are caught by firebase.messaging().onMessage, but when the app is closed, nothing happens.

From the adb logs, I see this error:

W ActivityManager: Background start not allowed: service Intent { cmp=xxx.xxx.app.dev/io.invertase.firebase.messaging.ReactNativeFirebaseMessagingHeadlessService (has extras) } to xxx.xxx.app.dev/io.invertase.firebase.messaging.ReactNativeFirebaseMessagingHeadlessService from pid=9775 uid=10211 pkg=xxx.xxx.app.dev startFg?=false

This seems related to Android's restrictions on starting background services. T

[olarra]

Thanks a lot @edwinw6 for this awesome message digging into it! 🤩

I shared it with the customer support and this is their response

I’ve heard back from our team and can confirm that we’re adding this issue to our backlog.
For greater context, our product team prioritizes bugs based on the severity of the issue and how widespread of an experience it is with customers. To provide insight on expectations, issues like this may not be actioned for some weeks.
This timeline is based on the team's current existing log of issues and upcoming feature releases which is subject to change.

So I imagine we won't hear from them for some time for such an important feature as push notification... I'll let you know when I have more informations from them.

Hello @raffiot have you had any update about this issue since the last time?

[Splanis]

hi any updates on this?

[olarra]

Hello @edwinw6,

Have you been able to find a solution to get push notifications working on Android when the app is in a quit state?

From my side, I’ve been in contact with Intercom support, but I’m not sure they understood that the issue doesn’t seem to be with the SDK for Expo itself, but rather with the content of the push notifications.

I’m also quite surprised that this issue hasn’t gained more traction—it feels rather silent. I wonder if it’s working properly for other people using Expo.

Let me know if you’ve made any progress!

Best regards,

[edwinw6]

Hey @olarra,

We have not been able to find a reliable workaround that also works when the app is in a quit state. I've asked Intercom support for an update on this, hoping that they'll be able to prioritise this issue.

If anyone is able to make this work on Android reliably, we'd love to hear!

[damiaanh]

For me, the package does not handle deeplinks correctly for mobile push notifications on iOS using Expo. The added deeplink is not triggered and the app is opened but does not navigate to the link.

I do receive the notifications.

I can confirm that the PN object contains the deeplink as uri in response?.notification.request.trigger?.payload?.uri with:

import * as Notifications from "expo-notifications";
const response = await Notifications.getLastNotificationResponseAsync();
console.log(response);

I have set up as described:

      LSApplicationQueriesSchemes: ["myapp"],
      IntercomUniversalLinkDomains: ["www.myapp.com"],

and have a working (deep) linking setup that I can test with npx uri-scheme.

For now, I do have a working workaround with a custom hook that listens to incoming push notifications (or gets the last one on cold boot) and opens the url:

import * as Linking from "expo-linking";
import * as Notifications from "expo-notifications";

 // Handle notifications while the app is in background/foreground
    const subscription = Notifications.addNotificationResponseReceivedListener(
      (response) => {
        const uri = response.notification.request.trigger?.payload?.uri;

        if (uri && typeof uri === "string") {
          console.log("Navigating to deep link:", uri);
          void Linking.openURL(uri);
        }
      },
    );

I would however expect that my changes in app.config.ts would be enough for the intercom-react-native package to handle deeplinks, as described.

Note also how intercom documentation mentions that push notifications are not yet supported by this package 🤷

Does anyone else experience this issue? Or did anyone had this issue but managed to fix it using the changes in app.config.ts? Curious to hear from you!

[yonitou]

@uddish do you know if the push notifications and deep links issue has been resolved for the Expo Plugin in the New architecture ?

[robwalkerco]

@yonitou and anyone else trying to get Push Notifications working well on Android with Expo - I've opened a ticket on the community support site at https://community.intercom.com/mobile-sdks-24/android-push-notification-handling-in-expo-expo-notifications-12797 👀