Google Alerts: Don’t get alarmed

Q. Years ago, I set up a Google Alert that sends me a daily email of new stories and websites posted to the internet that contain my search criteria, but now I’ve changed industries, and I no longer want to receive these alerts. I’ve logged into my Google account and searched all of my settings, but I can’t figure out how to delete this alert. How do I get rid of a Google Alert?

A. Sometimes the answers are so obvious, we miss them completely. To delete a Google Alert, open one of your Google Alert emails, and then at the bottom of the email, click the Unsubscribe button, as circled below.

Notice that you can also view all of your Google alerts by clicking the View all your alerts option located next to the Unsubscribe option.

For those unfamiliar with the Google Alert feature, it is an awesome tool. To set up a Google Alert, log in to your Google account and visit google.com/alerts, and then enter the search phrases you want to trigger an email alert. For many years I’ve received daily Google Alert emails summarizing the new webpages and articles containing the phrases accounting software or ERP, which has helped me keep up with those industries.

About the author

J. Carlton Collins (carlton@asaresearch.com) is a technology consultant, a CPE instructor, and a JofA contributing editor.

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