Getting notifications on Upwork is essential to building great work relationships in real time. That's why we automatically send you notifications when you get a message, and make it convenient for you to reply quickly.
When you receive a new message via Upwork Messages, by default we’ll notify you by email and with desktop and mobile alerts (if you’ve downloaded the apps). You can reply directly from any of these notifications, and your reply will always appear in Upwork Messages. Upwork Messages is a convenient spot to review all conversations.
You’ll also receive email notifications about your activity on Upwork, such as payment confirmations and start of contracts, and communications from Upwork, such as project recommendations and feature information.
If you like, you can choose not to receive desktop, mobile and email notifications for your messages by updating your notification settings. You can also control the type of email updates you receive.
If you’re having issues receiving notifications, please check the troubleshooting tips at the bottom of this article or use the troubleshooting tool in your iOS mobile app.
To change your settings for notifications from Upwork Messages:
- Go to your Notification Settings and choose the Messages tab
- Select a drop-down option for desktop, mobile, and email notifications
- For desktop, you can also choose whether to play a sound
- For emails, you can also set a frequency
To change your settings for email updates from Upwork:
- Go to your Notification Settings and choose the Email updates tab
- Check or uncheck the relevant boxes
IMPORTANT:
Because we do need to send you an occasional message or update, you can’t opt out of every Upwork message or email, but we promise not to send them too often.
Troubleshoot notifications
If you’re not receiving email notifications, please check your notification settings. Be sure to check your junk and spam folders too, as emails from us might be there. On rare occasions, there may be a site issue with Upwork that is affecting notifications. You can check for any site issues here: status.upwork.com.
If you’re not receiving any messages notifications via email or the app, they may have been disabled. To check this:
- Go to your Notification Settings and choose the Messages tab
- Review your drop-down selections for desktop, mobile, and email notifications and update your choices as needed
If you are receiving email notifications about messages, but are not receiving mobile app notifications, you may have disallowed push notifications on your device. Please enable notifications in your mobile device settings.
Some phones have power-saving modes or apps (example: DuraSpeed and Background Task Clear) that prevent push notification, even if you have them enabled.
Check your Notification settings under the Email updates tab. To receive marketing emails, you’ll need to check the relevant boxes under “Communications from Upwork” and “Miscellaneous.“ Be sure to check your junk and spam folders too, in case our emails landed there.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can control screen capture notifications directly from your desktop app by following these steps:
- Open the Messages icon in the desktop app
- Open your profile icon in the bottom left corner, then select Settings
- Select Messages and configure your notification settings
