How to Implement Push Notifications in iOS Apps (Swift)

In this guide, we explain how to implement Push Notifications in an iOS app using Swift.

To implement Push Notifications in an iOS app, you must be enrolled in the paid Apple Developer Program. For details, see About the Apple Developer Program.

Let's go through the steps to implement Push Notifications in an iOS app.

Table of Contents
  1. About Push Notifications in iOS Apps
  2. How to Create an App ID for Push Notifications
    1. Set the Bundle Identifier in Xcode
    2. Create an App ID for iOS in the Apple Developer Portal
  3. How to Generate an Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) Certificate
    1. Generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Mac
    2. Generate an APNs Certificate in the Apple Developer Portal
    3. Install the APNs Certificate on Your Mac
  4. How to Build an iOS App that Receives Push Notifications
    1. Enable the Push Notifications Capability in Xcode
    2. Implement Receiving Push Notifications in the iOS App
    3. Install the App on iPhone, Allow Notifications, and Obtain a Device Token
  5. How to Send Push Notifications Using curl
    1. Export a p12 File from the Certificate and Convert It to a pem File
    2. Send Push Notifications to APNs Using curl
  6. How to Send Push Notifications Using Node.js

About Push Notifications in iOS Apps

By implementing Push Notifications, you can display notifications on iOS devices from your server.

Push Notifications are delivered in the following order:

  1. The provider server posts a push request to the Apple Push Notification service (APNs).
  2. APNs delivers the push notification to the user's iOS device.
  3. The iOS device receives and displays the push notification.

The provider server is your own server, while the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is Apple's infrastructure.

The provider server connects to APNs over HTTP/2 with TLS 1.2 or later to send POST requests.

You can use any implementation to send the POST requests. Here, we'll demonstrate how to send them for testing using curl on a Mac command line and also how to implement it with Node.js.


This site explains how to generate the required App ID and certificate, how to build an iOS app that can receive notifications, and how to send Push Notifications for testing.

The Apple Developer Portal and Xcode UI may change over time, but the overall steps remain the same. We hope this guide is helpful to you.