Excel comments notifications

Question

How do I switch off email notifications to others in my network after posting comments in Excel?

Answer 1

Dear @George Papias,

Here are steps for your requirement:

Stop/limit comment-notification emails (OneDrive/SharePoint-based files)

For Excel files saved in OneDrive or SharePoint, Microsoft’s comment emails are controlled by each recipient’s notification settings

Open OneDrive from the App launcher.

Go to Settings (gear icon) > OneDrive Settings

Under Notification Settings, turn off:

Email notification when others reply to your comments

Email notification when others comment on my documents. Use @mention in comments to tag someone for feedback - Microsoft Support

I hope the information shared helps point you in the right direction. Please try the steps above and let me know if they work. If not, we can continue working together to narrow this down.

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Answer 2

Email notifications for Excel comments are controlled by OneDrive/SharePoint and Outlook settings, not directly in Excel.

To stop others in the organization receiving email notifications when comments are posted on shared files, each recipient must change their own notification settings; there is no global per-file switch in Excel.

For users who do not want to receive comment emails:

1. In OneDrive (in a browser):
   1. Open a new tab and select App launcher → OneDrive.
   2. Go to Settings → OneDrive Settings.
   3. Under Notification Settings, turn off:
      • Email notification when others reply to your comments
      • Email notification when others comment on my documents
2. From an Outlook notification email about a comment:
   1. Scroll to the bottom of the notification email.
   2. Select Notifications for this file (or equivalent option) to turn off further notifications for that specific file.
   3. This must be done separately for each file where notifications are not wanted.

Admins who want to reduce comment content in notification emails (for privacy) can run in SharePoint Online PowerShell:

Set-SPOTenant -AllowCommentsTextOnEmailEnabled:$false

This disables context previews of comments in email notifications but does not fully stop the notifications themselves.

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References:

• Use @mention in comments to tag someone for feedback
• Get notified when members of your team update your shared file
• Insert comments and notes in Excel

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