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Notifications

Octa can tell you when a long task is done, so you can work in another program meanwhile. It is on by default; Settings > Window > Notify me when a long task finishes turns it off.

When a notification appears

All three must be true:

  1. The setting is on.
  2. The task ran for at least Notify after (seconds): 5 by default, any whole number of 1 or more. Shorter tasks finish while you are still watching.
  3. Octa is not the window in front. If you are looking at Octa, there is no pop-up, unless Also when Octa is in front is ticked (off by default).

The notification says what finished and how long it took, plus the message Octa showed in its status bar at that moment, which tells you whether it worked. Every task Octa runs in the background counts:

  • SQL queries, local and on a database.
  • Reading from a database: a table, Load whole table, table details, analyses run on the server, writing back.
  • Opening a large file, or a file from a cloud bucket, an API or a web address; uploading to a cloud bucket.
  • Batch convert, Split into files, Export tables to files, Union, cloud and database copies.
  • Compare with database or cloud, Compare folders, comparing versions of a Delta or Iceberg table, Merge versions, Cell history.
  • Multi-search, searching the Databases and Cloud sidebars, a bucket inventory.
  • Report, Schema drift, Data drift, Harmonise schemas, Fuzzy join, Find near-duplicates, Find lookup tables, Relationship map, Clean-up suggestions.
  • An Assistant reply or an Ask question.

When several run at once, you get one notification when the last one ends.

Send test notification, next to the setting, shows one right away.

Your system

  • KDE Plasma: notifications appear in Plasma's pop-up and history under Octa's name and icon. System Settings > Notifications > Applications > Octa mutes them or changes how they show. GNOME and other Linux desktops use the same notification service.
  • Windows: nothing to install. The Store version shows its notifications as Octa. The zip and installer versions register Octa's name and icon for your user account before their first notification (one registry entry, no admin rights).
  • macOS: Notification Centre. macOS asks once whether Octa may send notifications.

Nothing is stored and nothing runs in the background for this: Octa notices the moment it was already noticing that the task is done.

Minimised windows on Wayland

Some Wayland desktops stop drawing a window that is minimised. Octa then notices the end of a task only when its window is shown again, and the notification comes late. A window that is merely behind others is not affected.