Switching off comment notifications in word documents

Brass Contributor

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.

30 Replies

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

 

@Paul Chapman 

 

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?

Hi @Angela McGhin

 

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.

@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.

@Von Zantua 

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

Thanks Kory but not within OneDrive or SharePoint. Email notifications are being triggered when someone commented in a Word document.

@Von Zantua 

Yes, that is what it is regarding.  When someone comments on a Word document comments.  It is when the file is hosted in Onedrive or SharePoint.  That is what I read. 

Yes! Thank you!

@Kory Hirak Are these the two notification settings you can change to modify email frequency from @mentions?

@Kory Hirak This worked - thanks very much!

@Angela McGhin 

The following method worked for me:

  1. Go to OneDrive online (can be found in your App Launcher in an internet browser)
  2. Go to Settings (Gear icon on the top right)
  3. Under OneDrive, click OneDrive Settings
  4. The first page you land on is Notification Settings, switch the necessary functions to OFF. That's it!

juliefaas_0-1619470126829.png

 

I tried this so many times and it does not work @juliefaas 

Nothing works for us. It's only some of our team members seem to be getting emails but not all. This is absolutely driving me insane - I get 30 to 40 emails daily! I just don't understand... 

This unfortunately, for whatever reason, did not work for my team.
Hello, we have not yet enabled OneDrive in our org so cannot try the suggested solution above. Does anybody know if there is another way to stop these email notifications? Thanks

@Brett Williams 

Check with your tenant admin, there should be settings in the O365 service that could turn this off for the whole tenant. A group policy could be applied as well. 
This is changing...again...Using modern comments in Word - Word (microsoft.com)