Turn on notifications
Right after you connect your first bank, Copper shows the kinds of notification it sends and offers to turn them on. Tap Turn on notifications and your phone asks for permission; tap Not now to skip. Copper offers this once on each phone, and never when you open the app. You can also go to Settings › Notifications at any time and switch on Allow Notifications. Your phone asks for permission the first time, and only then. On Android 12 and earlier there’s no question; notifications are allowed from the start. The switch is per phone, so turning it off on one phone doesn’t affect another. If you said no before, Copper offers to open your phone’s settings: iOS Settings, where you can turn on Allow Notifications for Copper, or Android Settings, where you can turn on notifications for Copper. If you turn notifications off there later, the switch in Copper turns off too.Choose what you get
With notifications on, four more switches appear under Settings › Notifications:
These follow your account, so they apply on every phone you’re signed in on. On the web, you’ll find the same switches under Settings › Email, in Phone notifications. Some notifications have no switch of their own and come whenever notifications are on:
- A bank needs you. Without it your budget would quietly stop updating.
- Apple Pay logging. When Copper confirms a purchase you just logged with Apple Pay with a notification, it’s a reply to what you just did, so it always comes.
- Trial ending. A reminder before you’re charged, so it’s never a surprise.
Quiet hours and limits
Between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on your phone’s clock, notifications still arrive but silently: no sound, and they don’t light up the screen or pop up. You’ll find them in Notification Center (on Android, the notification shade) in the morning. Apple Pay logging confirmations always come right away. So your phone is never flooded, each phone gets at most 6 notifications in an hour and 24 in a day. Anything past that is skipped, and it’s all still in the app. Bank alerts and Apple Pay confirmations don’t count toward the limit.What Copper notifies you about
Every notification names the budget it’s about, so a shared or second budget is always clear.
Private buckets stay private here too. Bill reminders and price hikes for a private bucket go only to its owner. Heads-up and funding notifications still count it for everyone else, without naming it.
New transactions
Each new transaction gets its own notification, with left-to-spend already counting it. Spending that isn’t in a bucket yet adds Tap to give it a bucket. When more than three arrive in one sync, they’re combined into one summary so your phone isn’t flooded. Tap a notification to open that transaction (after your PIN, if you’ve set one).Bill reminders
Copper checks once a day for bills and card payments due in the next three days, and reminds you once per due date:- If the bucket is short: “Your bucket is $40.00 short of the $120.00 due. Fund it now to stay on track.”
- If it’s funded: “$120.00 is set aside and ready.”
Heads-up and price hikes
These are explained in Heads-up alerts and Price-hike watch.Low balances
When a bill is about to come out of an account that won’t have enough, Copper tells you two days ahead. See Low-balance warnings.Monthly recap
On the 1st, Copper lets you know your recap is ready. Tap it to see how last month went: what you spent compared with the month before, money in and out, where most of it went, and how your bills and spending buckets stand. The same recap is at the top of Trends for the first week of the month. The notification never includes your amounts.Trial ending
If you’re on a free trial and notifications are allowed, Copper reminds you two days before the trial turns into a paid plan, with how to cancel if you don’t want to continue. Tap it to open Copper’s Settings, where your plan is.
Choose which ones you get in Settings → Email, in the app or on the web. Every email you can turn off also has an Unsubscribe link at the bottom. Buttons in Copper’s emails open the right screen in the app on your phone, or Copper on the web on a computer.
Copper’s emails never include your amounts or balances, and Copper never asks for your bank password or card details by email.
Widgets
The Left-to-Spend widget shows what you can spend and your daily allowance until payday. The Bucket widget shows one bucket: what’s in it and how close it is to its target. Tap either one to open Copper.- iPhone
- Android
To add one, touch and hold an empty spot on your Home Screen or Lock Screen, tap Edit or Customize, and search for Copper.For the Bucket widget, add it the same way, then touch and hold it, tap Edit Widget and choose the bucket. It comes in small and medium on the Home Screen and rectangular and circular on the Lock Screen. Tap it to open that bucket.
How the widget stays current
The widget shows the budget you last had open in Copper, using the numbers the app last saved. It works out the daily allowance itself, so that stays right as the days pass. A purchase you log with Apple Pay updates it right away. If its numbers are more than 12 hours old, the widget adds how long ago they were updated, like “Updated 14h ago”. Open the app to refresh it. When you’re signed out, the widget reads “Open Copper to see your left-to-spend.”Siri and Spotlight
Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight search are iPhone-only. See Copper on Android.
Notifications and widgets are in the iPhone and Android apps. The web app doesn’t send notifications.