According to an official post, Google will stop the YouTube email notifications feature for its users. This will come into effect from August 13.
There are a lot of different ways via which YouTube notifies you about a new video. For instance, mobile app notifications and alerts on the desktop site. However, one of the methods, i.e. the YouTube email notifications service will end on Thursday.
YouTube has decided to stop this service because there were very few users who were opening these notification emails. Notably, users either respond to push notifications from the mobile app or desktop alerts.
So, there is no reason to continue with this service. For those who have opted for this service from a YouTube channel, will be notified via the other two ways from August 13, whenever a new video or live stream goes live from the subscribed channel.
Less than 0.1% of these emails are opened and contribute more to inbox junk
As per the official post, the numbers also favor this decision. Apparently, less than 0.1% of the users open the YouTube email notifications. Moreover, these emails only contribute to more inbox junk as per the users.
Besides, after August 13, the primary method of alert notification going forward would be Android, iOS, and web notifications.
On top of that, creators also stated that these email notifications did not contribute to watch time when tested with turning off these emails. Matter of fact, mobile push notifications are the best way of engaging the audience with the latest content.
Notably, other important emails from YouTube like information about your account, mandatory service announcements, etc. will not go away. And will be sent on a timely basis.
YouTube Push notifications are the way going forward
From August 13, YouTube mobile push notifications will notify the users about any new stream, live broadcast, or video upload from their subscribed YouTube channel.
If you have not yet enabled these settings, you can do so by heading over to Settings and enabling them ON. These push notifications will remind you of new uploads, replies to your comments, etc. You can head over here to know more about this feature.
YouTube further stated that this decision will also help users to give more attention to important emails. This also shows the company’s eagerness to reduce unnecessary information overload.
What’s interesting is that there are several users and creators who have raised issues in the past regarding the unreliability of the push notifications. Notably, there are many complaints that push notifications are not sent out on time or not sent at all, whenever the creator uploads a new video.
In that scenario, email notifications were a good option to have. But now that this service will be gone, we hope Google rectifies the issue with the push notifications.