SharePoint alerts replacement: getting a daily digest back after the July 2026 retirement
Microsoft retires SharePoint alerts in July 2026, and none of the official replacements can send a daily digest of changed files. SharePoint Rules and Power Automate both send one email per event, not one email per day. To keep a daily summary you either build the aggregation yourself in Power Automate, or use a service that does the batching for you.
The daily summary is the one capability Microsoft did not carry forward. Everything else in the classic alert engine has a replacement; batching does not. This page covers what is being switched off, what each replacement actually does, and what the realistic options are.
What is being switched off, and when?
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| January 2026 | Creating new alerts is disabled. Existing alerts continue for now. |
| January–July 2026 | Existing alerts expire every 30 days and must be recreated manually to keep running. |
| July 2026 | The feature is switched off completely in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. |
The 30-day expiry is what catches organisations out. Alerts stop silently — nobody receives an email telling them the emails have stopped.
Why are SharePoint Rules not enough?
- No batching. Rules send one email per event. There is no built-in way to collect the day's changes into a single message, which was the entire point of the classic alert's daily summary option.
- AutoSave causes email storms. AutoSave in Microsoft 365 registers a change repeatedly during one editing session. Office 365 for IT Pros documented a test in which a single editing session generated 71 separate messages.
- Permission requirements. Creating a rule needs at least contributor permission on the library. The external inspector or subcontractor who only needs to be told cannot set up their own notification.
Can Power Automate produce a daily digest?
Yes, but only as a build. A working daily digest in Power Automate needs at least three parts:
- A flow triggered by When a file is created or modified that writes each event to a SharePoint list, Dataverse table or equivalent store.
- A second, scheduled flow that reads that store each morning, groups the records by folder or project, and composes an HTML email.
- Logic that clears or marks records as sent, so yesterday's changes are not repeated tomorrow.
Then add error handling, recipient management, and an owner for the flow after its author leaves. This is straightforward for a team with Power Platform skills. It is not something a site manager configures in a morning, and it is rarely documented afterwards.
The licensing trap: premium connectors and Dataverse fall outside the Power Automate entitlement included with Microsoft 365. A solution built on a standard connector today can become licensable once it needs to scale. Check this before you build, not after.
What are the alternatives, and what do they actually do?
| Option | Daily digest | Multiple providers | Recipients without a licence | Requires development |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SharePoint Rules | No — one email per event | No — SharePoint only | No | No |
| Power Automate | Only if you build it | Yes, via connectors | Yes, to email | Yes |
| Zapier / Make | Only with a datastore + schedule | Yes | Yes, to email | Yes |
| Netwrix, Varonis, FileAudit | Yes, as a security report | Yes | No — an IT tool | Requires a rollout |
| CloudReport | Yes — one email per person per day | Yes — Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive | Yes | No |
Note the difference in purpose. Netwrix, Varonis and FileAudit are security and audit products sold to IT departments to detect exfiltration and anomalous access. They solve a different job from telling a project manager that the drawing changed.
What does CloudReport do differently?
CloudReport treats batching as a product feature rather than a project. It connects to an organisation's existing Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive accounts, compares each monitored account against its last observed state, and sends one email per recipient per day containing links to what changed, grouped by project and folder.
- Recipients need no account and no licence. Subcontractors, inspectors and client representatives receive the report by email without anyone buying them a seat. Nordic project platforms — Dalux, iBinder, Interaxo, Byggnet — all charge per user, which is precisely why those people usually receive nothing at all.
- File content is never stored. CloudReport sends links to the file where it already lives. Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive remain the source of truth and the data controller. What is stored is which accounts are monitored, file names and paths, change events and recipient email addresses — not the documents. The full list is here.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to migrate away from SharePoint?
No. CloudReport monitors OneDrive for Business through Microsoft Graph and replaces the notification, not the storage. Files stay where they are.
What is happening to our existing alerts right now?
They expire every 30 days until the final shutdown. An alert working today does not mean it will work next month. Check that someone is still actually receiving the emails.
Can different projects get different digests?
Yes. Recipients are set per monitored account, and each person receives one email with one section per project, regardless of how many projects they are involved in.
How does the cost compare with building it in Power Automate?
Compare on maintenance rather than on the build. A Power Automate flow is cheap to build and expensive to own: it needs debugging, licensing and a handover when its author changes jobs. That is the cost that rarely makes it into the estimate.
Need the daily digest back?
CloudReport connects to Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive over OAuth. You choose the folders and the recipients, and the report goes out every weekday morning.