How to Set Up Craigslist Alerts (for Email or SMS) – HowToGeek
Whether you’re looking for apartments or used gadgets on Craigslist, you don’t have to keep checking the website. You can stay on top of things by getting notified when new posts go up that match your searches.
How to Get Email Notifications
Craigslist has built-in email alerts. You can get an email alert for any Craigslist search, and it’s free.
To set up email notifications, just head to the Craigslist website and perform whatever search you want. For example, you might pick a city, select the apartments for rent section, enter how many bedrooms you want, and provide the maximum amount of rent you’re willing to pay per month.
The official Craigslist alerts FAQ says that the more specific your search, the more often it will run and the more alerts you’ll get. In other words, if you’re searching for all cars for sale in a city, Craigslist will check for new posts less often than if you’re searching for only a specific model of car.
After you’ve performed your search, click “Save Search” to the right of the search bar on the Craigslist website. This same option appears right by the search box on the Craigslist mobile website, too.
If you’re not already signed in to Craigslist, you’ll be prompted to either sign in or create an account. If you don’t yet have an account, it’s easy and quick to create one.
You’re then taken to the Searches page in your Craigslist account settings. To activate email alerts for the search you just saved, click the “Alert” checkbox to the left of the search.
Checking the “Alert” box activates email notifications for that search. They’re sent to the email address associated with your Craigslist account, so keep an eye out for the emails.
Remember, the more specific your search, the more often Craigslist checks for new posts and emails them to you.
You can see all the searches for which you’re receiving emails, as well as deactivate, edit, or delete those searches.
How to Set Up SMS Alerts
Craigslist doesn’t have built-in SMS alerts, but you can set up your own with the popular IFTTT (If This, Then That) service. This is useful if you want instant notifications of new Craigslist posts on your phone without having to check your email.
Update: IFTTT no longer offers SMS alerts. However, if you install the IFTTT app on your phone, you can set up push notification alerts instead. Follow the below process but choose notifications instead of SMS as your action.
To do this, head to the IFTTT website and create an account if you haven’t already done so. After you’re signed in to your IFTTT account, click “My Applets” and then click “New Applet. ” You can also do this in the IFTTT app for iPhone or Android, or on the mobile website.
On the New Applet page, click the “This” link.
Search for “Classifieds” and click the “Classifieds” option.
Select “New Post From Search. ”
Copy-and-paste the search results address from Craigslist into the box here. To get this address, head to Craigslist and search for whatever you want. Select the web address in your browser’s address bar and copy it.
When you’re done, click “Create Trigger. ”
Next, click the “That” link to set up what happens when the trigger is activated.
Click the “SMS” option in the list of services.
Click “Send Me an SMS. ”
With the default settings, you’ll receive an SMS with the title of each post and a clickable link. Click “Create Action” to accept this.
You’ve now created your action, and you can click “Finish. ”
Ensure the applet is set to “On” on the final page. If you ever want to disable the applet, you can head to the My Applets page on the IFTTT website to toggle applets on and off.
To choose the phone number where those searches are going, head to the SMS Settings page and enter your phone number.
The IFTTT service also has a premade recipe that automatically sends you smartphone notifications from Craigslist searches if you have the IFTTT app on your phone. If you’d prefer to receive push notifications about new posts matching your search than SMS messages, this also works well.
This is a good example of what you can do with IFTTT, too. You can either head to the IFTTT website and choose a premade applet or string together an applet you like by combining a trigger and an action.
RELATED: How to Automate Your Favorite Apps with IFTTT
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How to Save a Craigslist Search & Get Email – Small Business …
If you’re looking for rare items or a particular type of job listing on Craiglist, you may have to search periodically. If you’re tired of typing the same query every time and running the search repeatedlly, you can save the search and get the updates in your email account. Craigslist enables you to save your searches but, unfortunately, it can’t email you any new results. You can, however, use the RSS feed of the search page and a third party service to get the results via email. Saving Cragslist Searches Before you can save a search, log in to your Craigslist account or create one. Choose the correct location and category and then use the search box to conduct the search. Click the “Save” link near the top of the search results list to save the search. You can view, as well as edit or delete, your saved searches in the Searches section of your account page. Getting Email Updates Each search results page contains an RSS feed that you can use to track the page. To do so, use one of the dozens of RSS-to-email services to get the latest updates delivered directly to your email account. You can use the Blogtrottr, FeedMyInbox or ShootTheBreeze service for free. Furthermore, you don’t need to sign up for an account; you just need to type the URL of the RSS feed and your email address. To get the RSS URL, right-click the “RSS” link near the bottom of the search results page on Craigslist and choose “Copy Link Location” or “Copy” from the context menu. References Resources Writer Bio Nick Peers has been writing technology-related articles since 2003. His articles have appeared in dozens of technical publications, including MSN UK, CNET, BBC Who Do You Think You Are, LifeHacker UK and TechRadar. He holds a Masters in information technology degree from the University of East London.
How To Monitor Craigslist and Receive New Post Notifications
Maybe you’re looking to buy a new sofa after your cat scratched up your old one. Maybe you’re trying to make some extra cash doing odd jobs on the weekends. Whatever your reasons, you want to keep abreast of new Craigslist posts. Unfortunately, you don’t have the time to be checking the Craigslist listings every few hours, and when a new listing does catch your eye, you’re always too late. If only there were a way for you to get notified whenever a new listing that matches your needs pops up. As it turns out, there to Get Craigslist NotificationsGet notified about new listings in an RSS feed of your design. Like many similar sites, Craigslist is RSS friendly and makes it easy to setup a feed for any given search to for your your desired search. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the results RSS in the bottom right hand corner. The next page will look very confusing. Don’t worry about what it says. Just copy the URL from the top of your browser. Paste the URL into an RSS reader of your, when viewing your reader, you’ll receive notifications whenever a new post pops up matching this specific search, What is an RSS Feed? RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. It’s a format that delivers web content to you that may change over time. In other words, it can be used to keep on top of budding news stories, posts on popular forums, and more. In order to read an RSS feed, you need an RSS reader. There are numerous readers out there, many of them free. A few of the most popular and highly rated include:NetNewWire (Macintosh)SharpReader (Windows)AmphetaDesk (Windows and Mac)FeedReader (Windows and Web-based)News is Free (Web-based)Of course, this is only a sampling. If these feeds aren’t to your liking, a quick Google search will reveal dozens more to choose to Set Up an RSS FeedEach of the aforementioned programs operates a little differently, but the principle is largely the same. We’ll use FeedReader’s web-based application as an to Start reading feeds on the left. Click Create Account at the top of the fields on the a username and password. Click the large button underneath reading Create Add a new feed on the left hand side. Paste the Craigslist URL into the address space provided in the pop-up. Click Add the Refresh to refresh the feed and view new this for as many Craigslist searches as you want. Remember that you need to copy a new RSS URL for each search criteria. Then, you can view them individually or all together via of the available readers also include features that will text you or email you when postings arise. Many of these features require paid ’s Always an AppIf this all sounds way too high maintenance, you can always just get a Craigslist app. There are dozens of such apps available for iPhone and Android, many of which include features to make searching and being notified of new postings easy as pie. Then again, you can always just keep checking and try your luck on the next sofa that you happen to notice.