How to put my icon on a firebase push notification when the application is in the background or closed?

Yes, onMessageReceived come only to the onMessageReceived method when the application is active. When the application is in the background - the message immediately falls into the notification. You can set the click_action property on this message and in your application catch it via intent-filter .

Example

The body of the message that the server sends:

 var message = new gcm.Message({ collapseKey: 'data', priority: 'high', contentAvailable: true, delayWhileIdle: false, timeToLive: 10000, data: { message: 'Message from gcm server', action: 'some action' }, notification: { tag : 'hasData', title: "English for Founders", icon: "ic_launcher", color: "#22C064", sound: "notification_sound", body: "This is a GCM notification that will be displayed ASAP.", click_action: "OPEN_APP" // make intent-filter in Manifest.xml for this action } }); 

You have a filter on action - OPEN_APP for a certain OPEN_APP registered in Manifest.xml .

As a result, the phone will receive a push-уведомление from which you can get click_action and when the Activity starts, in the onCreate method you can also get data from this message, like this:

 public static void parseExtras (Bundle intentExtras){ if (intentExtras != null) { for (String key : intentExtras.keySet()) { try { String value = intentExtras.getString(key); Log.wtf(TAG, "Key: " + key + " Value: " + value); }catch (ClassCastException e){ Log.wtf(TAG, "Cannot parse extras, ClassCastException");} } } } 

And if you need to display a picture, write its name in the icon tag