Forum Discussion
Switching off comment notifications in word documents
Hi - is it possible to turn off email notifications for replies to comments in a word document? We seem to get a notification about new comments every time the document is saved, and as Word autosaves, this is getting to be fairly frequent on large documents with lots of discussion!
We actually don't need to be emailed at all so if there's a way to disable the notifications altogether that would be great.
This post was a while ago, but I found myself with the same issue today (2023). We use SharePoint and this is how I've managed to solve it incase others need help with this too:
- Log on to your SharePoint online account (you will need to have Admin access rights or get someone with admin access rights to do it for you)
- Click on the SharePoint logo top left to get to the Start Page:
- Click on Settings widget top right and select 'Email notification settings':
- Deselect the notifications you don't want. This will then apply to all users in the organisation using your sharepoint files.
The other place to turn off notification is on the email notification itself. Scroll to the bottom of the email. If you just want to stop notification for that file, toggle it off. If you want to stop it for all files, click 'Notification Settings' which will open the notifications specifically related to the email address receiving the notifications. Toggle applicable ones to off. See screenshots below:
Angela McGhin I realize you asked your question years ago, but I was wondering weather you tried removing the authors from the document? (So when you go to file - info - related people (bottom right). I was wondering if that would stop the author from getting emails when people post comments
- Microsoft products are a tool. They should think of them like a chisel. You don't take a chisel and turn it into a rubber duck, because you feel like it. The craftsman would be very angry and break your neck. So they should not be surprised if there will be craftsmen breaking their necks, next time they implement features to the chisel, that make the tool useless or cost the craftsmen time to disable if they can be disabled at all. &TLDR; No email notifications. EVER. PERIOD.
MS tell us here
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-mention-in-comments-to-tag-someone-for-feedback-644bf689-31a0-4977-a4fb-afe01820c1fd?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us
That when you get the email notifying of a comment in a file, you can turn off further email notifications for that one file from within the email. See the "How to turn off notifications in Outlook" heading at the bottom of the page.
In my testing emails that came to me after someone @mentioned my name in a comment DID not contain the slider to turn off notifications, microsoft mention in the link above.
BUT
in an older email (May 2020) sent because I was @mentioned in a comment , there was a link that redirected tohttps:// mytenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/firstname_lastname_mytenant.com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?p=22
Which is also mentioned on the Microsoft link above.
This suggests that Microsoft expect that OneDrive settings to control ALL comment notifications either from documents held in OneDrive or held in SharePoint online.
It looks like the implementation isn't complete or relies on other tenant wide settings.
Does anyone have a good understanding of this they could share ?The emails sent by Word or Powerpoint online when comments are made to documents held in SharePoint online sites linked to Teams have 2 different formats in my case:
- Subject line : UserName replied to a comment in "DocumentTitle"
- this email has the following footer
Why am I receiving this notification from Office?
Microsoft logoPrivacy Statement | Notification Settings
- The "Notifications settings" link takes the user to https:// mytenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/recipientfirstname_recipientlastname_mytenant_com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?p=22
- this email has the following footer
- Subject line : UserName replied to a comment in "DocumentTitle".
- this email has the following footer
Why am I receiving this notification from Office? - Which links to
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/why-am-i-receiving-email-notifications-from-office-3b68030d-9e75-4122-984c-3b966b898049?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us
- this email has the following footer
When I change my OneDrive settings here
https:// mytenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/recipientfirstname_recipientlastname_mytenant_com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?p=22- Email notification when others reply to your comments
- to off
- I no longer get the Subject line : UserName replied to a comment in "DocumentTitle" emails
- to off
- Email notification when others comment on my documents
- I can't get this to do anything ? on or off.
- Subject line : UserName replied to a comment in "DocumentTitle"
The following method worked for me:
- Go to OneDrive online (can be found in your App Launcher in an internet browser)
- Go to Settings (Gear icon on the top right)
- Under OneDrive, click OneDrive Settings
- The first page you land on is Notification Settings, switch the necessary functions to OFF. That's it!
- Did the person who is the author or owner of the document turn it off on their "side" as well. Might be something that can be turned off at a tenant level in the O365 settings.
Angela McGhin We have submitted a user voice to get this feature changed, please vote: https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/41445055-balance-email-notifications-on-comment-replies
Angela McGhin, did you hear anything from Microsoft about this? Our users started getting emails 2 weeks ago and it's too much emails just on commenting.
I think what you want is to turn off the email notifications in OneDrive.
- From the gear in you OneDrive account (online) select OneDrive Settings
- The Notifications Settings open - all are on by default. Slide the toggle to off for "Email notifications when other reply to your comments"
I have had my users (who collaborate and use comments in Word docs) do this and have not heard from them if that was the solution to stop the notification emails but it seems like it would be.
Smiles, Kory
- This unfortunately, for whatever reason, did not work for my team.
I don't suppose you have come across a way to turn off the email notifications? We are having the same issue and it is crazy to get so many email notifications when replying to a document with many comments.
Thanks,
Randi
Randi_PrieurThis is still an issue for us as well, and still something I am finding it impossible to find documentation about (although I may just be looking in the wrong place). I have been doing some tests again today and I've attached the document I've come up with that describes how I think comments and replies work. Happy to hear if I have this wrong from anyone here...
Hi Paul Chapman, Angela McGhin and Randi_Prieur ,
This same issue is now occurring in my department. Did you all ever find a resolution and/or has anyone from Microsoft weighed in yet? The individual user going in to adjust their notification settings can't be the only answer, especially for large organizations. Please let me know if you have come across anything.
Hi Angela,
I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with this! First told about this today by a colleague who is replying to comments in a (long, involved) Word doc and another colleague is getting emails galore telling him a comment has been replied to, which he's not best pleased about.
Looking into it I can find a note explaining that @mentions are now good for Word files, and that's fine. And when I test it myself I get a colleague to @ me in a file I shared and then when I reply, even if I don't @ them back, that colleague get's an email. What's confusing for me however is that looking at the Word file causing the initial problems, no-one has been @ mentioned in the comments, but the emails still get fired off whenever a comment is then replied to.
I can't find any documentation on how 'Replying to comments' has changed recently in Office 365. Hopefully someone here can point us in the right direction. Meanwhile I'll keep looking.
Paul
Hi Paul - this is exactly our problem too!
Totally understand the relevance of the feature, but would be nice to be able to switch it off :-)Hopefully someone can help.
- I thought this issue had been a one-off for us, something I put down to the new feature being activated while the document was being worked on. But we've had another instance reported today, a user receiving multiple emails in reponse to comments where the user was not @ mentioned to begin with. Angela, did this behaviour stop happening for you?
