Home Assistant (HASS.IO) Integration with Apprise

This guide explains how to integrate Apprise with Home Assistant using the built-in Apprise notification platform. This approach allows you to centralize all notification logic in a single configuration file (or Apprise API source) while letting Home Assistant focus purely on automation logic.

Sending notifications to Home Assistant instead?

This guide covers using Apprise from within Home Assistant to deliver notifications to external services. If you want to use Apprise to send notifications to Home Assistant (persistent dashboard alerts or direct service calls), see the Home Assistant service plugin (hassio://).

Why Use Apprise with Home Assistant

Using Apprise provides several benefits:

• A single configuration file for all notification services
• Support for dozens of providers (email, Telegram, ntfy, Kodi, and more)
• Tag-based routing for flexible notification targeting
• No vendor lock-in at the automation level

Home Assistant remains unaware of provider details. It simply sends messages to Apprise and lets Apprise do the rest.

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1. Installation

Apprise is built into Home Assistant Core. You do not need to install a custom component or add-on. It is available immediately via the notify platform.

2. Configuration

Choose the configuration method that best fits your needs.

Method 1: Inline (Quick Start)

This method works well for a quick setup or when you don’t need to target different services individually. The url parameter accepts a single URL or a list of URLs — all of them are notified together on every call.

Edit configuration.yaml

Add one or more URLs directly to your configuration file.

/config/configuration.yaml

notify:
  - name: apprise_quick
    platform: apprise
    url: tgram://123456789:ABCDefghIJKLmnOPqrstUVwxyz

To notify multiple services, pass them as a list:

/config/configuration.yaml

notify:
  - name: apprise_quick
    platform: apprise
    url:
      - tgram://123456789:ABCDefghIJKLmnOPqrstUVwxyz
      - mailtos://user:pass@smtp.gmail.com

No selective targeting with url

Every service listed under url fires together on every notification call. If you need to send different alerts to different services, use Method 2 or 3 instead — those support tag-based targeting via the target field.

Method 2: Local Config (Standard)

This method is the standard for managing multiple notification services, complex groups, and tagging logic.

Apprise is smart enough to detect your file type. You can use YAML (structured) or TEXT (simple list) files.

Step A: Edit configuration.yaml

Point to your preferred configuration file.

/config/configuration.yaml

notify:
  - name: apprise
    platform: apprise
    # You can reference a YAML file...
    config: /config/apprise.yaml

    # ...OR a simple text file
    # config: /config/apprise.conf

Step B: Create your config file

Option A: YAML (Structured)

Create /config/apprise.yaml. Best for complex setups.

/config/apprise.yaml

urls:
  - tgram://123456789:ABCDefghIJKLmnOPqrstUVwxyz:
      tag: telegram
  - mailtos://user:pass@smtp.gmail.com:
      tag: mail

Hybrid Configuration

You can also use the include directive inside your local file to pull in remote configurations while keeping some local!

/config/apprise.yaml

# Point to an Apprise API Instance:
include http://apprise.host/get/my-profile-key

urls:
  # Plus local overrides
  - mailtos://local-user@example.com

Option B: TEXT (Simple)

Create /config/apprise.conf. Best for simple lists of URLs.

/config/apprise.conf

# Tag defined by comma prefix
telegram=tgram://123456789:ABCDefghIJKLmnOPqrstUVwxyz

# Multiple tags defined by comma
mail,devops=mailtos://user:pass@smtp.gmail.com

Hybrid Configuration

You can also use the include directive inside your local file to pull in remote configurations while keeping some local!

/config/apprise.conf

# Point to an Apprise API Instance:
include http://apprise.host/get/my-profile-key

# Plus local overrides
mailtos://local-user@example.com

Note

The include will only works if your Apprise API server has APPRISE_CONFIG_LOCK is not set to yes.

Method 3: Remote Config (API)

This method is ideal for Roaming Configurations. If you run multiple Home Assistant instances or other services, you can centralize all your notification logic in a self-hosted Apprise API instance.

Edit configuration.yaml

Instead of pointing to a local file, point the config parameter directly to your API endpoint.

/config/configuration.yaml

notify:
  - name: apprise_api
    platform: apprise
    # Apprise will fetch the configuration from this URL
    config: https://apprise.host/get/my-profile-key

Access Restriction

If your Apprise API server is running with APPRISE_CONFIG_LOCK enabled, then this method will not work.

3. Usage in Automations

Once configured and Home Assistant is restarted, you can send notifications using the notify service.

Example: Using Method 1 (Inline)

If you used Method 1, your service is likely named notify.apprise_quick. You do not need to provide a target because the destination is hardcoded in your configuration.

- alias: "[Interactive] - Sunset Notice"
  trigger:
    platform: sun
    event: sunset

  action:
    # Matches the 'name' you gave in configuration.yaml
    service: notify.apprise_quick
    data:
      title: "Good evening"
      message: "The sun is setting."

Example: Using Methods 2 & 3 (Config Based)

If you used Method 2 or Method 3, you can control exactly who gets notified by using the target field to match the tags defined in your YAML file (or API configuration).

- alias: "[Interactive] - Sunset Notice"
  trigger:
    platform: sun
    event: sunset

  action:
    service: notify.apprise
    data:
      # This 'target' matches the 'tag' in your config
      target: email
      title: "Good evening"
      message: "The sun is setting."

Advanced Tagging Logic

You can combine tags in your target field to create powerful notification groups on the fly.

Target Value	Logic	Description
target: devops	Simple	Notifies everything tagged devops.
target: [devops, alarm]	OR	Notifies everything tagged devops OR alarm.
target: "devops alarm"	AND	Notifies only services that have BOTH tags.

4. Testing Your Configuration

Before wiring Apprise into automations, verify it works from the command line:

apprise -vv -t "Test" -b "Hello from the CLI" \
    tgram://YOUR_BOT_TOKEN/YOUR_CHAT_ID

Then confirm Home Assistant can reach the same service by triggering the notify.apprise service manually from Developer Tools → Services.

5. Discovering Available Notify Services

If you want Apprise to call back into Home Assistant itself (for example, to push to a mobile device registered in the HA companion app), you can use the hassio:// plugin in your Apprise URLs. To find the exact service name:

1. In Home Assistant, open Developer Tools → Services.
2. Filter by domain notify — you will see entries like notify.mobile_app_johns_phone.
3. The portion after notify. is the service name to use in the Apprise URL:

apprise -vv -t "Alert" -b "Test push" \
    'hassio://ha.local/YOUR_TOKEN/notify.mobile_app_johns_phone'

See the Home Assistant service plugin for the full hassio:// URL reference.

6. Debugging & Logging

If your notifications aren’t sending, you can enable debug logging specifically for the Apprise component in Home Assistant. Add this to your configuration.yaml:

logger:
  default: info
  logs:
    homeassistant.components.apprise: debug

After restarting, check your Home Assistant logs. You will see Apprise attempting to load your configuration and dispatch messages, which will help identify invalid URLs or network issues.