notification-forwarder-controller is a small, opinionated Windows tray application that takes system and app notifications and reroutes them wherever you're actually paying attention — a phone, a webhook, a second monitor, a log file, whatever. It was built solo, shipped fast, and kept lean on purpose: no background telemetry, no bloated settings tree six menus deep, no "sign in to continue." You open it, you point it at a destination, it starts forwarding.
The problem it solves is simple and universal: Windows notifications are excellent at appearing and terrible at persisting. Miss the five-second toast and it's gone into Action Center purgatory. A notification forwarder closes that gap by intercepting the notification pipeline the moment it fires and pushing a copy out through a channel you control — push endpoint, webhook, local relay, or a lightweight desktop overlay that doesn't vanish until you say so.
This tool is for people running headless builds, multi-machine setups, home labs, or just anyone tired of alt-tabbing back to a machine to check if a long job finished. If you've ever wished your build server, your download client, or your backup script could just tell you directly, this is that wire.
| Capability | The Angle |
|---|---|
| Live Notification Interception | Hooks into the Windows notification stream as it fires — not a polling loop, not a screen-scrape. Real-time capture, near-zero lag. |
| Multi-Destination Routing | One notification, many exits. Fan it out to a webhook, a relay server, and a local log simultaneously, each with its own filter rules. |
| Per-App Rule Engine | Mute Spotify, forward Slack, escalate anything from your CI tool. Rules are matched by source app, keyword, or priority tag. |
| Zero-Dependency Standalone Binary | No runtime to install, no framework to babysit. It's one executable and it just runs. |
| Quiet Hours & Priority Overrides | Silence the noise at night while still letting "server down" alerts punch through. Configurable per rule. |
| History & Replay | Every forwarded notification is logged locally so you can replay it if the destination missed it — no notification left behind. |
| Lightweight Tray Footprint | Sits in the system tray sipping resources. No hidden services, no scheduled tasks spawning in the background. |
| Portable Config Profiles | Export your routing setup as a single file, drop it on another machine, done. Fleet setups take minutes, not hours. |
Tip
Start with one destination and one rule. The rule engine gets powerful fast, but the fastest way to trust the tool is to see a single notification land correctly first.
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Hit the download button above — it drops you on the project landing page.
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Grab the latest standalone build for Windows 10/11, no installer wizard nonsense.
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Run the executable — it lands in your system tray, no admin elevation required for basic forwarding.
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Open the tray icon, add your first destination (webhook URL, relay address, or local log), and send a test notification to confirm the pipe is live.
Note
First launch creates a local config folder next to the executable. Nothing is written outside that folder — portable by default.
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Windows 10 (64-bit) or Windows 11
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No .NET redistributables, no runtimes, no third-party services to provision
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Roughly 40MB of disk space, negligible RAM footprint while idle in the tray
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Outbound network access only if you're forwarding to a remote destination — local-only setups need nothing external
The forwarding pipeline is intentionally short — fewer hops means fewer places for a notification to get lost.
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Capture — the controller taps into the Windows notification stream as toasts are raised.
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Filter — each notification passes through your per-app and keyword rules to decide relevance.
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Route — matched notifications are packaged and sent to every destination assigned to that rule.
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Confirm — a delivery receipt (or failure) is written to local history for replay if needed.
flowchart LR
Notification --> Capture
Capture --> Filter
Filter --> Route
Route --> Destination
Important
Filtering happens before routing, not after. If a notification never matches a rule, it's never sent anywhere — silence is the default, not the exception.
My notifications aren't showing up at the destination.
Check that a rule actually matches the source app — unmatched notifications are dropped silently by design. Open the history panel to confirm whether the notification was even captured.
The tray icon disappeared after a Windows update.
Windows sometimes resets tray visibility settings after cumulative updates. Re-pin the icon from the hidden icons tray, or relaunch the executable — no reconfiguration needed, your rules persist.
Webhook destination shows "delivery failed."
Usually a timeout or an unreachable endpoint. Check the destination URL is reachable from that machine, and confirm outbound traffic isn't blocked by a firewall profile.
Can I forward to more than one destination from the same app?
Yes — assign multiple destinations to the same rule. Each fires independently, so one failing doesn't block the others.
Does this read the content of encrypted or private notifications?
It only reads what Windows itself exposes through the standard notification API — nothing more, nothing decrypted or intercepted at a lower level.
Quiet hours aren't muting anything.
Quiet hours suppress by priority tier, not blanket-mute everything. Confirm the notifications you expect muted aren't tagged as high priority overrides.
Note
The interface is deliberately minimal — a tray icon, a rules panel, and a history view. No dashboards you need a tutorial for.
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Keyboard shortcuts:
Ctrl+Shift+Nopens the quick-rule creator from anywhere;Ctrl+Shift+Hpulls up recent history;Esccloses any open panel. -
Themes: Light, Dark, and an Auto mode that follows your Windows theme setting.
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Settings persistence: All settings live in a single portable config file — copy it, back it up, version it, your call.
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Notification history view: Scrollable, searchable, filterable by app or destination, with one-click replay.
This started as a solo project and stays fast-moving because of it, but issues, feature requests, and pull requests are genuinely welcome. If you've got a destination integration in mind, a rule-engine idea, or found a rough edge — open an issue.
Tip
Small, focused pull requests get reviewed fastest. If you're proposing a bigger change to the routing engine, open an issue first so we can align before you write code.
Star the repo if it saves you from checking a machine you didn't need to walk over to.
Released under the MIT License, 2026. Use it, fork it, ship it inside your own tools — just keep the license notice intact.
notification-forwarder-controller is provided as-is, with no warranty of any kind. It forwards notifications based on the rules you configure — it is your responsibility to ensure destinations, webhooks, and endpoints you route sensitive notifications to are trusted and secure. The maintainer is not responsible for data sent to third-party destinations you configure.
Warning
If you route notifications containing sensitive information (2FA codes, private messages, etc.) to an external webhook, that data leaves your machine. Choose destinations you trust.