If the “Alert me” emails from SharePoint have stopped arriving, you're not imagining it, and nothing is broken on your side. Microsoft has retired SharePoint Alerts for everyone. The good news: the replacements are better, and the simplest one takes about two minutes to set up.
What happened to SharePoint Alerts?
Microsoft phased Alerts out in three steps. From July 2025, new tenants could no longer create them. From January 2026, nobody could create new ones. And from July 2026, existing alerts stopped working altogether. Microsoft's recommended replacements are SharePoint Rules for simple notifications and Power Automate for anything smarter.
Step 1: work out what you've lost
Many teams only notice the change when something slips through. Before rebuilding anything, ask the people who used alerts four quick questions:
- —Where? Which libraries and lists did you get alerts from (Contracts, Invoices, HR requests…)?
- —What? Do you need to know about every new file, or only certain changes, like a status becoming “Urgent”?
- —Who? Should the message go to one person, a group, or a Teams channel?
- —How often? Straight away, or would a daily summary be enough?
Option 1: SharePoint Rules (the two-minute fix)
Rules are built into SharePoint lists and libraries and are the closest replacement for the old “Alert me”. Anyone with edit access can create one, with no extra tools or licences.
- —Open the list or library you want to watch.
- —Select Automate (called Integrate in some versions), then Rules, then Create a rule.
- —Choose what should trigger it: a new item or file is created, a column changes, or an item is deleted.
- —Choose who should get the email, then select Create.
That's it. The limits: Rules only send emails, they send one email per change, and they can't do summaries or more complex conditions. For a busy library, that can mean a lot of emails.
Option 2: Power Automate (smarter notifications)
When you need more control, Power Automate can do what Alerts never could. A few examples I set up regularly:
- —A Teams message in the Finance channel whenever a new invoice is uploaded, instead of yet another email.
- —An email only when it matters, for example when Status changes to “Urgent” or a contract value is over a set amount.
- —A daily summary at 8am listing everything added or changed yesterday, instead of 40 separate emails.
- —An approval request when a document is uploaded, so it's reviewed, not just announced.
To start, open the list or library and select Automate, then Power Automate, then Create a flow. Templates like “Send a customized email when a new SharePoint list item is added” are a good starting point. Flows that use SharePoint, Outlook and Teams run on the standard connectors included in most Microsoft 365 business plans, so there's usually nothing extra to buy.
Which one should you use?
- —SharePoint Rules: one person or a few people need an email when something is added or changed. Quiet libraries. Set up in minutes.
- —Power Automate: you need Teams messages, conditions, daily summaries, approvals, or notifications for a busy library.
Keep notifications useful, not noisy
- —Notify a group or a Teams channel, not individuals, so messages don't stop when someone changes role or leaves.
- —Use summaries for busy libraries. If people start ignoring the emails, the notifications have stopped doing their job.
- —Give every flow a clear name and a second owner, so it keeps running when its creator moves on.
- —Write down what you've set up: which list, what triggers it, and who gets told. It's step 9 of my Microsoft 365 setup checklist for a reason.
Alerts going away is a good excuse to rethink notifications properly. The right message, to the right people, in the right place, is far more useful than a pile of automatic emails. If you'd like a hand, my Power Automate service covers exactly this.
