How to Add Rich Push Notifications in Expo (iOS Images)

Send a push notification with an image and Android shows it beautifully. iOS shows nothing, because Apple requires a notification service extension your Expo app doesn't have yet. I add one using Expo Apple targets, no ejecting required, and by the end the same notification displays its image on a physical iPhone.

This is a free lesson from my React Native course, and I walk through every step in the video, Swift code included.

What's inside

• Why iOS drops notification images while Android shows them by default
• Generating a notification service extension with npx create target
• The Swift code that downloads and attaches the image
• Configuring your Apple team ID and signing in app.config.ts
• Prebuilding with --clean and running on a real iPhone
• Testing with Quick Push and updating the Expo server SDK

Resources

CourseReact Native course

Go deeper in the Push Notifications section: 100 minutes on Expo, OneSignal, and rich media.