Email Notifications

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Your site gives Users or Groups the ability to be notified by email any time uploads are made to a specific folder on your site.

Email notifications are sent in batches, with email frequency options of every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, hourly, or daily.

Notification emails will include a list of the files uploaded within the configured notification period, limited to the first 100. If you require a more comprehensive or fine-grained notification solution, consider using Webhooks instead, perhaps in conjunction with a Zapier integration.

You can configure email notifications for any folder that you have access to within the site; your privileges will determine whether you can manage other users' notifications. Site administrators or users who have admin rights to a folder can use the settings for a folder to manage email notifications. Those users can also search for "Email Notifications" in the search bar at the top of every page to locate a listing of all notifications that have been configured for the folders they can control. Users who do not have any administrator access can use the Email notifications button located above the Files listing to set up their own notification for a folder. All users can configure their own email notifications from the My account page.

For those who prefer to use API access, the Notifications API will allow you to create, update, or delete notifications

The Command Line Application (CLI) provides low-code access to the Files.com API. Use the following command to create an email notification using the CLI application (replace <FOLDER> with the folder path and <USERNAME> with your own username):

files-cli notifications create <FOLDER> --username <USERNAME>

File activity on a Remote Server Mount will never be included in email notifications. Your site does not poll remote servers used in a Remote Server Mount. Use a Remote Server Sync instead for realtime interoperability between Automations and Remote Servers.

Every email notification must have 3 settings associated with it: the user or group who will receive the emails, the path that is being monitored for activity, and the frequency those mails will be sent.

The Include my own activity setting displays when you are editing a notification for yourself, while Include each user's own activity is displayed when you are editing a notification for another user or group. When this option is checked, then email notifications for a user will include that user's activity (along with any other eligible activity). This is disabled by default because it can generate numerous, potentially redundant emails.

If the Include subfolders setting is enabled, relevant changes in all subfolders of this folder will trigger notifications.

Other settings provide even more granular control over when a particular notification will be sent. Click on the Advanced link to see the settings if they're not visible to you.

You can use the What file action checkboxes trigger this notification? checkboxes to indicate the types of activity that will cause an email to be sent. By default, only uploading files will cause an email notification.

The What files trigger this notification setting allows you to limit the file names that will generate a notification email. By default, any file name can trigger the email notification.

Site administrators and users with administrator rights to at least one folder can use the Include activity from the following users or groups setting to control whether actions performed by certain logged-in users will generate the email. By default, all users' activity can cause an email notification to be sent. Users who are not administrators cannot limit which users' activity will generate the emails, and the setting won't be displayed for them in the web interface.

By default, only activity from logged-in users is included in notification emails, and activity from web visitors to Share Links is not included. Enabling the Include activity from share bundle recipients checkbox will also include this web visitor activity.

The Custom message setting accepts text that will be included in every email generated by this notification.

If a user has any notifications that are sent once per day, the Daily email notification send time user setting can select the hour when daily notifications will be sent. Site administrators can modify the Daily email notification send time value for a user in the user's settings. All users can change their own Daily email notification send time in the My account page. The setting does not appear for a user who does not have any notifications configured to be sent once per day.

If you prefer to use an API to set the daily notification time, make use of the Users API to show and change the settings for a user. The daily email notification send time is stored in the notification_daily_send_time property.

The Command Line Application (CLI) gives you access to the API without requiring a development environment. Use this command to retrieve the setting for a user id. Replace <USERID> with the ID number of the user.

files-cli users find --id <USERID> --fields notification_daily_send_time

Use this command to retrieve the setting for a user id. Replace <USERID> with the ID number of the user. Replace <HOUR> with the hour of the day, from 0 to 23, when notifications should be sent (in the user's timezone).

files-cli users update --id <USERID> --notification-daily-send-time <HOUR>

You can delete email notifications for any folder that you have access to within the site; your privileges will determine whether you can delete other users' notifications. Site administrators or users who have admin rights to a folder can use the settings for a folder to manage email notifications. Those users can also search for "Email Notifications" in the search bar at the top of every page to locate a listing of all notifications that have been configured for the folders they can control. Users who do not have any administrator access can use the Email notifications button located above the Files listing to disable their own notification for a folder. All users can configure their own email notifications from the My account page.

For those who prefer to use API access, the Notifications API will allow you to create, update, or delete notifications

Use the following command to delete an email notification using the Command Line Interface (CLI) application. Replace <NOTIFICATION ID> with the unique ID for your notification (you may need to use the files-cli notifications list command to find the notification ID):

files-cli notifications delete --id <NOTIFICATION ID>

Each notification email includes a link at the bottom to Update your mail preferences or unsubscribe from these e-mails. Clicking this link takes you to a page that lists all of your currently active notifications. You can disable individual emails or use the Permanent Removal Option to opt out of all future emails for all notifications. Clicking the Don't email me anything, ever again button is a permanent step, and cannot be undone, even by our support staff.

When a user account is deleted, any email notifications associated with that user are automatically removed.

First, verify that the user hasn't unsubscribed or had a hard bounce. A hard bounce is an email that has been returned to the sender due to a permanent error - most often, an invalid address. If a user's notifications have been permanently unsubscribed due to a hard bounce, first fix the problem that prevented the user's mail server from accepting the email. Once you have verified the email address will work, contact support to reset the email's status.

A site administrator can view the Email notifications list in the user's settings. The Status column indicates whether the user is receiving notifications. If they have unsubscribed, the status will show Unsubscribed.

You should also ensure that the user has an email address set. Some users have an email address as their username yet leave the email field blank, which means your site doesn't have an address to send notifications. If this happens, copy the proper address into the email field for the user.