How to Get the Apple Critical Alerts Entitlement
Notifications that break through silent mode and Focus need a special entitlement. Here is who qualifies and how to request it.
Founder, Newly
A Critical Alert is a notification that plays a sound and shows on screen even when the iPhone is muted or in a Focus / Do Not Disturb mode. Because it deliberately overrides the user’s silence settings, Apple restricts it to a narrow set of genuinely life-, safety- or health-critical apps and requires you to request the entitlement before you can use it.
Apply through this form
Critical Alerts entitlement request form
Key Takeaways
- Critical Alerts bypass silent mode and Focus — and need the user’s separate opt-in too.
- Apple grants the entitlement only for health, safety, security and emergency use cases.
- You must request it before the entitlement can be added to your provisioning profile.
- At runtime you also request UNAuthorizationOptions.criticalAlert and send a critical sound payload.
Critical Alerts at a Glance
What This Entitlement Is
The Critical Alerts entitlement (com.apple.developer.usernotifications.critical-alerts) lets your app deliver notifications that ignore the ringer switch and Focus modes. Even after Apple grants it, the user must still approve critical alerts for your app, and can revoke them in Settings. It is intended for alerts where a missed notification could have serious consequences — not for marketing or engagement.
Entitlement & config keys
com.apple.developer.usernotifications.critical-alertsRuntime: UNAuthorizationOptions.criticalAlertAPNs payload: sound { "critical": 1, "name": "...", "volume": 1.0 }
Who Needs It
Health & medical apps
Glucose monitors, patient-monitoring and medication apps where a missed alert is a clinical risk.
Public safety & emergency
First-responder, severe-weather and emergency-notification apps that must reach the user immediately.
Home & personal security
Security systems and personal-safety apps signalling intrusions or SOS events.
Not for engagement
Apple declines requests where alerts are promotional, social or merely time-sensitive rather than truly critical.
How to Request the Entitlement
- 1
Sign in as the Account Holder
Open the Critical Alerts request form from the Apple Developer account that owns the app.
- 2
Identify the app and bundle ID
Provide the app and its bundle identifier so the entitlement can be attached to the right App ID.
- 3
Justify why the alerts are critical
Explain the specific life-safety, health or security scenario and why a normal or time-sensitive notification is not sufficient.
- 4
Wait for the manual review
Apple vets each request by hand and frequently asks for a stronger justification before granting.
- 5
Wire up the runtime once approved
Add the entitlement, request UNAuthorizationOptions.criticalAlert at runtime, and send a critical sound object in your APNs payload.
What Apple Evaluates
- Whether a missed notification would have a genuine health, safety or security consequence.
- That the app category fits the narrow set of approved use cases.
- That a standard or time-sensitive notification would not do the job.
- That critical alerts are not used for marketing, social or engagement prompts.
Timeline. Reviewed manually by Apple, typically over days to a few weeks, and it is common to be asked to resubmit with a clearer case. Once approved, the entitlement appears in your provisioning profile and you can request the .criticalAlert authorization option and send critical-sound pushes.
Common Reasons It Gets Rejected
Alerts are not actually critical
Apple decides a normal Time Sensitive notification is enough, because nothing life-critical depends on it.
How to avoid it: Tie the request to a concrete safety, health or security outcome, not convenience.
Generic justification
A vague "our notifications are important" rarely passes the very high bar.
How to avoid it: Describe the exact event, the consequence of a missed alert, and the at-risk user.
Category mismatch
An app that is not clearly in health, safety, security or emergency is usually declined.
How to avoid it: If your use is borderline, consider Time Sensitive notifications, which need no entitlement.
Adding It in Newly
Newly builds real native apps, so the capability goes into your app exactly the way it would in a hand-written project — you just describe it instead of editing config files.
- 1Ask Newly to "send critical alerts that bypass silent mode for X events" and describe the safety scenario.
- 2Newly adds the critical-alerts entitlement and requests UNAuthorizationOptions.criticalAlert in the notification setup.
- 3Submit Apple’s Critical Alerts request form for your bundle ID and wait for approval.
- 4After approval, rebuild and ship — and make sure your push backend sends the critical sound payload.
For the full deployment flow, see the permissions & entitlements guide in the Newly docs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the user still turn critical alerts off?
Yes. Even with the entitlement granted, the user must approve critical alerts for your app and can disable them per-app in Settings at any time.
What is the difference between Critical Alerts and Time Sensitive notifications?
Time Sensitive notifications can break through Focus but respect the ringer/mute switch and need no entitlement. Critical Alerts override the mute switch and Focus entirely, and require Apple’s approval.
Do I need a special APNs payload?
Yes. For remote pushes you send a sound object with "critical": 1 (plus an optional volume), and at runtime you must have requested the .criticalAlert authorization option.
My request was denied — what now?
Resubmit with a sharper justification that ties the alert to a clear safety, health or security consequence. If your case is really about urgency rather than criticality, use Time Sensitive notifications instead.
Ship a Critical Alerts app without fighting the native config
Describe the feature and Newly wires up the entitlement keys, Info.plist / manifest entries and native modules for you — then builds and submits to the App Store and Google Play. You still file the approval yourself, but the build is ready the moment it's granted.
Sources & Further Reading
Official Apple documentation for the Critical Alerts capability. Always confirm the current requirements against these pages before you apply.