Forum Discussion
Automated emails from SharePoint when new file added to sites document library
I have noticed in the last few months that I have been receiving emails from SharePoint Online when a new file has been added to a sites document library, these files specifically come from attachment questions on MS Forms we have in place. I have been trying to find out where these alerts are managed but to no avail.
I first thought to check the old soon to be deprecated alerts area, no rules set up. I then check the new rules section....nothing. Also ran an audit from that site to see what actions were taking place at the time of the email....no results. Finally tried to run a mail trace but "SharepointOnline" isn't a user object/mailbox in our database so no result would come back.
Has anyone else had any experience with this or luck managing it?
1 Reply
One thing I’d suggest checking is whether the users receiving these emails are following the site or the document library.
In SharePoint Online, users can end up automatically following a site or library (especially ones created/used by Microsoft Forms). When that happens, SharePoint can send email notifications whenever new files are added — even though there are no classic alerts, no rules, and no Power Automate flows configured.
This would also explain why:
- nothing shows up in the old or new alerts UI
- audits don’t return any relevant events
- mail trace doesn’t help since the emails are generated by SharePoint itself, not a user mailbox
It’s worth asking affected users to check Followed sites / Followed documents via the bell icon in SharePoint and remove the library if it’s listed there.
Let us know if that helps.
