Each user has control over what notifications they will receive, though there may be multiple reasons why you did or did not receive a notification you were expecting. Review the following potential solutions to troubleshoot why you may not have received a copy of a notification to your email.
Table of Contents
This article will address the following information:
SOLUTION: Verify your notification preferences
In Canvas, all users have the ability to set their default Account-Level Notification Preferences as well as modify their Course-Level Notification Preferences. Course-Level Notifications Preferences are inherited from the Account-Level Notification Preferences settings, but any changes made at the Course-Level will over-ride the Account-Level settings.
Review our Student Notification Recommendations article for suggested frequency of notifications based on different activity types and triggers.
Be sure to also review our Account and Course-level notification support articles:
SOLUTION: Check your spam messages / Whitelist notifications from Canvas
Check the spam folder of your email client. If you find that your notification emails are going to your spam folder, you will need to Whitelist the email address from which notification messages are sent.
The sender email address for all notifications is: "[email protected]"
In your email inbox, notification emails will likely show the sender as
"Course Name <[email protected]>" or "User Name <[email protected]>".
Different email clients have different settings, permissions, and processes—so you will want to look up the proper instructions based on the email client you use to manage your email. Below are the 2 most common tools:
Outlook
Gmail
SOLUTION: Verify that your email address is confirmed
For some users, their email address gets into an "Unconfirmed" state when Canvas tries to send a notification and receives a bounce-back email. This can happen if you have an email address that is inaccurately entered in Canvas or sometimes it can happen due to an email server issue out of your control.
To check the status of your email:
- Go to your "Account" in the Global Navigation on Canvas.
- Click on "Settings" in the panel that opens.
- On the right-hand side under "Email Addresses," look at your top, default email address. If there is an exclamation point (!) indicator, your email address is currently not confirmed.
- Click on your unconfirmed email address.
- In the pop-up that opens, click the "Re-send Confirmation" link.
- Go to the email account that you just re-sent the confirmation to and find / open the confirmation email. In the email, press the "Click here to confirm this registration" link.
What if I don't receive the confirmation email that was re-sent and my email continues to say unconfirmed?
This issue cannot be resolved by the Canvas @ Yale support staff—you will need to contact the Instructure (vendor) support for assistance.
In the event that you did not receive the confirmation email that was re-sent (and it did not go into your email's spam folder), your email has been placed on Instructure's internal blacklist, which is stopping emails from being sent to your account due to multiple bounced emails.
You must contact Instructure Support for assistance by clicking the Help button in the global navigation menu. Then either call the phone hotline number provided or use the online chat option.
For help with your Yale University email, please contact the ITS Help Desk. For general Canvas @ Yale help, please contact [email protected].