Provided are techniques for synchronizing a device using push notifications. For each of a plurality of messages, a message record is created in a table of a database with a message create time for a message, a device identifier of a device to receive the message, an application identifier of an application on the device to receive the message, message content of the message, and an indicator to indicate whether the message has been picked up by the device. A message is selected from the plurality of messages. It is determined that a message retry count for the message has not been met and the message has not been picked up by the device. It is determined that it is time to retry sending a silent push notification based on a retry interval. The silent push notification is sent to the application on the device to wake up the application.