If your Apple devices aren't getting Apple push notifications

Learn what to do if your Apple devices don’t see Apple push notifications when connected to a network.

This article is intended for network administrators.

How Apple Push Notification Service connects

To use Apple Push Notification Service (APNs), your macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS devices need a persistent connection to Apple's servers over Ethernet, cellular data (if capable), or Wi-Fi.

Check required ports and hosts

If you use a firewall or private Access Point Name for cellular data, your Apple devices must be able to connect to specific ports on specific hosts:

  • TCP port 5223 to communicate with APNs.

  • TCP port 443 or 2197 to send notifications to APNs.

TCP port 443 is used during device activation, and afterwards for fallback if devices can't reach APNs on port 5223. The connection on port 443 uses a proxy as long as the proxy allows the communication to pass through without decrypting.

The APNs servers use load balancing, so your devices don't always connect to the same public IP address for notifications. It's best to let your device access these ports on the entire 17.0.0.0/8 address block, which is assigned to Apple.

If you can't allow access to the entire 17.0.0.0/8 address block, open access via the same ports to these network ranges on IPv4 or IPv6:

IPv4

  • 17.249.0.0/16

  • 17.252.0.0/16

  • 17.57.144.0/22

  • 17.188.128.0/18

  • 17.188.20.0/23

IPv6

  • 2620:149:a44::/48

  • 2403:300:a42::/48

  • 2403:300:a51::/48

  • 2a01:b740:a42::/48

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