Email notifications deliver information to Users or Groups about specific file operations in your site, pushing relevant activity history information to the people who need to take action.

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 matching actions 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.

Setting Up Email Notifications

Users with folder admin rights can manage other users' notifications for the folders they manage. Site administrators can manage any user's notifications for any folder in the site.

Any other users (users who are not site administrators and do not have admin permissions for a folder) must have the History permission to configure email notifications for their own user accounts. Notifications created by this type of user can only include folders for which they have History permission.

Notification Options

Every email notification has 3 required 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. Other options allow you to fine-tune the notifications so you're notified only about the activity of interest.

By default, users are not notified about their own file activities, but you can choose to include this type of activity in the notification's settings. This is disabled by default because it can generate numerous, potentially redundant emails.

You can also choose whether a notification for a folder includes all of its subfolders. By default, notifications are fully recursive, meaning that activity in any subfolders will trigger activity for the folder.

You can choose the types of activity (uploading, downloading, deleting, and copying or moving files into the target folder) that will cause an email to be sent. By default, only uploading files will cause an email notification because uploading is the most typical activity that someone needs to respond to. Any activity that matches the selected types will be included, regardless of the interface used. For example, previewing a text file may be logged as a download, which could trigger notifications. Similarly, editing a spreadsheet file with the Files.com editor or Microsoft Office for the Web will both download and upload the file as it moves between your storage and the editor; this activity will trigger matching notifications.

You can choose to limit the file names that will generate a notification. By default, any file name can trigger the email notification.

If you are a site administrator or you have admin rights to the notification's folder, you can also limit exactly which users' activity will trigger the notification. By default, all users' activity can cause an email notification to be sent.

Activity from web visitors to Share Links is not included by default. You can choose to include this activity in the notification's settings. If your intent is explicitly to monitor that a Share Link was received, or that your recipient uploaded to a Share Link, there are separate notification options that can be enabled on your Share Link.

If you're setting up multiple notifications for different folders that go to the same people, you may want to customize the message that is included in the notification email.

Daily Email Notification Send Time

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. The setting is only visible in the web interface for a user who has at least one notification configured to be sent once per day.

Notifications and Remote Servers

File activity performed using your Files.com site, such as managing files through the Files.com web app, Desktop apps, CLI, or running Automations on a Remote Server Mount, will trigger email notifications. File activity occurring directly on the remote server without involving Files.com site will not generate email notifications, as your site does not poll remote servers used in a Remote Server Mount.

Deleting Notifications

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 remove email notifications. Other users can disable their own notification for a folder.

Problems Sending Email Notifications

Check the Outbound Emails log to determine whether an email was generated for your notification.

If no email was generated, there are several steps to take for troubleshooting notifications.

When an outbound email was generated but rejected, this is known as an email bounce. Temporary problems, such as an email inbox being full, are called a soft bounce. When the problem with the recipient's inbox is fixed, emails to that address will work correctly again.

Incorrect or misspelled email addresses result in a hard bounce, which requires you to fix the email address. A hard bounce means the recipient's server is signaling that the email address cannot be used, and we honor this signal by ceasing further email attempts to that address.

Permanently Opting Out of Email Notifications

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. Choosing Don't email me anything, ever again is a permanent step, and cannot be undone, even by our support staff.

It is not possible to remove the unsubscribe link from emails sent from your Files.com site. This link is required to maintain our compliance with national and international privacy laws governing email distribution. The presence of this link also helps ensure emails sent by Files.com do not get treated as spam by other mail servers.

Notifications for Deleted Users

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

Notifications for Disabled Users

When a user account is disabled, email notifications are not automatically deleted for the user, but emails will not be delivered.