Samsung is adding auto-blocking for push ad spam on Galaxy phones. The company has updated Device Care with a new ”Intelligent Blocking” feature that tries to identify advertising and push-notification spam, then quietly puts the offending app into ”deep sleep” so it stops bothering the user. The first phones to get it are the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra.
The feature arrives in Device Care 13.8.80.7 and sits inside One UI 8.5. Samsung says the system analyzes notifications from apps and looks for signs of marketing-heavy behavior. That is a sensible response to one of Android’s more annoying habits: apps that ask for permission once, then behave like they own your lock screen.
How Intelligent Blocking works
If an app starts sending too many push alerts, the phone can automatically move it into deep sleep. In practice, that cuts the app off from notifying the user at all. Samsung admits the system is not perfect, which is the polite way of saying it can still confuse useful alerts with junk.
- Device Care version: 13.8.80.7
- Feature name: Intelligent Blocking
- First supported interface: One UI 8.5
- First devices: Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, Galaxy S26 Ultra
Samsung still leaves users an escape hatch: the app can be manually unblocked in Device Care. That matters, because notification filtering is one of those features that sounds brilliant right up until a banking app, delivery tracker, or two-factor prompt gets caught in the net.
Why Samsung is doing this now
This is Samsung trying to build a native defense against a problem Android users have complained about for years. Google has tightened notification controls over time, but app makers still push the limits, and phone vendors have room to add their own guardrails. Samsung’s move looks less like a novelty and more like a practical response to notification fatigue.
The feature is already available in a build that can be installed manually through APK files, but the full global rollout has not started yet. The official Samsung and Google app stores are still serving the older Device Care version, so most users will have to wait a few weeks before the phone does the inbox triage for them.
The first test will be false positives
Samsung’s bet is obvious: most people will forgive the occasional overreach if it means fewer junk notifications. The real question is whether Intelligent Blocking can stay aggressive enough to stop ad spam without becoming that one overzealous bouncer who throws out the guest of honor.