Comments on a list item: who gets told

Short answer: Microsoft's help page describes one notification for comments: an @mention emails the mentioned person a link to the comment, and the person must be able to edit the item. It describes no notification for a comment without a mention. To tell the owner on every comment, use a flow or a column the commenter fills in, because Microsoft's rules page describes rules on column changes, not on comments.

How comments work

You open a list item and choose Comment, or select the comment icon next to the item. You type in the Comments pane and press Enter. To reply, you type in the same box and press Enter again. Microsoft's help page on comments says editing a comment is not currently available. You can delete one with the Delete icon in the Comments pane.

Who can comment matters too. Microsoft says "If you don't see comments, check with your admin, who may have disabled commenting." You need permission to add or delete comments. Guest and anonymous users can view comments but cannot add or delete them. If you cannot see comments at all, ask your admin whether they are turned on.

What a mention does

A mention is when you type the at sign and a name in the comment box, pick the name from the list, and press Enter. Microsoft's help page says the person you mention gets an email with a link to your comment.

There is a permission check first. Before the comment is sent, SharePoint checks whether every mentioned person can edit the item. If someone cannot, a Grant Access box lists them. You can share the item with them and notify them from there. Microsoft says notifications about the comment are sent once all mentioned people have permission.

Microsoft also says repeat mentions of the same person on one item are grouped to reduce the number of emails. So a long thread may produce fewer emails than comments.

Microsoft's separate page on why you might receive list notifications lists mentions as one of the reasons you get one. It says you are notified when someone tags you in a comment on a list item.

What a comment does not do

Microsoft's pages describe the mention email. They do not describe any setting that alerts the item owner, or the whole team, for every new comment. If nobody is mentioned, the pages do not describe anyone being told. Microsoft's comments page and notifications page give no steps to turn mention emails off.

A Microsoft Q&A answer on this exact question, from someone whose technicians left comments on list items, reached the same point. The answer said there is no built-in way to notify on a comment, and suggested Power Automate. The same answer said the built-in alert flow is not triggered by a comment, because comments are not part of the item's version history. Treat that thread as community help, not as Microsoft's official position. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: plan as if a comment alone tells nobody.

Mentions can fail, so do not rely on them alone

A Microsoft Q&A thread from January 2026 describes mention emails that stopped arriving for some people. A moderator in that thread suggested checking these things:

Whether the item is checked out, in draft or pending approval.
The mentioned person has access to the list or item.
Junk Email, quarantine, and Outlook or mail-flow rules.
Testing in a private browser window to rule out a browser problem.

The thread says a moderator acknowledged the incident, and that some people reported mentions working again in late January 2026. The visible thread does not show Microsoft closing the incident. This is a reason not to make a mention the only way a person finds out about something important.

Option 1. Ask people to mention the owner

This is the simplest option and needs no setup.

Write one line in your team rules: "Mention the item owner in every comment that needs action."
Make sure owners have edit permission on the items they own, so the permission check passes.
Test it once: add a comment on a test item that mentions yourself or a teammate, and confirm the email arrives.

The weakness is people. They forget, and they mention the wrong person. One way to start is to use mentions for questions to one person, and use Option 2 or 3 for anything that must never be missed.

Option 2. Use a column and a list rule

Microsoft's page on automating a list says rules in a list can automatically notify someone when a column changes. It lists other triggers too: a value changes, a new item is added, or an item is deleted. That page links to a separate help article for the steps.

A comment is not a column, so a rule cannot watch comments. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: add a plain Choice column named Needs attention, with values such as 1 No and 2 Yes, plus a Single line of text column named Question. The comment person fills in the Question column and sets Needs attention to 2 Yes. A rule on the Needs attention column then notifies the owner. A Microsoft Q&A answer suggested the same idea for the same problem: use a text column for feedback, because a change to a column can start an alert or flow.

Open the list and look for Automate, then Create a rule. The exact names may differ.
Choose the rule that notifies when a column changes.
Pick the Needs attention column and choose who to notify, such as the person in the Owner column.
Save the rule and test it with a test item.

Microsoft's rules page does not state how many people can be notified, how many rules a list can hold, or what the email contains. See also "Microsoft Lists rule did not send the email: what to check".

Option 3. Use a Power Automate flow

A flow gives you more control. A Microsoft Q&A answer to the question of notifying owners about comments describes this pattern: a scheduled flow that loops through the list items, calls the SharePoint REST API to read each item's comments, checks them, and emails the owner. Test it on a copy of your list first.

The outline, one way to start:

In Power Automate, create a scheduled cloud flow that runs once a day.
Add the SharePoint action Get items. In its Advanced options, set Top Count up to 5,000 and turn on Pagination. The default returns only 100 rows, and a list longer than that will be cut off silently. See "Power Automate Get items stops at 100 rows: how to get them all".
Inside an Apply to each loop, add Send an HTTP request to SharePoint. Method: GET. Uri: _api/web/lists/GetByTitle('Your list')/GetItemById(ID)/Comments, with ID from the current item.
Compare the comment times to the last time the flow ran, so you only email about new comments. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: for a daily run, keep only comments whose createdDate is later than addDays(utcNow(), -1), with a Filter array step.
Send one email per owner, not one per comment.

A simpler flow works if you use the column from Option 2. The flow starts when an item is created or modified, checks that Needs attention is 2 Yes, and emails the owner. If the flow also writes back to the item, add a loop guard, for example a condition that stops the flow when the value it would write is already there. For an email that goes out before something is due, see "Send a reminder before a due date in a SharePoint list". For a message in a chat instead of email, see "Post to Teams when a SharePoint list item changes".

Microsoft's pages do not state which license you need for these actions. Check with your admin before you build.

A note on Alert me

Alert me is the older SharePoint feature for getting an email when something changes. Microsoft's help page about alerts says that starting July 2026, SharePoint Alerts for SharePoint in Microsoft 365 are fully retired and stop working. It recommends rules or Power Automate for notifications. Do not build a comment process on Alert me.

What to avoid

Do not assume a comment alerts anyone. If it matters, say it in a column or mention a person.
Do not mention someone who has no edit permission on the item and then close the Grant Access box. Microsoft says notifications are sent once all mentioned people have permission.
Do not put decisions only in comments. You cannot edit them, and one comment can be lost in a long thread. Put the decision in a column such as Decision.
Do not create a flow that emails on every run for the same old comment. Track what you already sent.
Do not use comments to hold private notes. Anyone with access to the list can see them.

Honest limits

Notification behavior changes, so test with a test item in your own list before you tell your team it works. If you need to know who changed something or when, see "See who changed a row: SharePoint version history", since comments are not part of that history.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Does a comment on a list item send an email?

Not on its own. Microsoft's help page says a person who is mentioned in a comment gets an email with a link. Its pages do not describe an email for a comment with no mention.

How do I stop SharePoint comment notification emails?

Microsoft's comments and notifications pages give no steps to turn off mention emails. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: an Outlook rule can move them to a folder.

Can an admin turn off list comments?

Microsoft's help page says your admin may have disabled commenting. It gives no steps for the admin.

Why did my mention not send an email?

Microsoft says the email goes out once everyone mentioned has edit permission on the item. A Microsoft Q&A moderator also suggested checking whether the item is checked out, in draft or pending approval, and checking Junk Email, quarantine and mail rules.

Can I edit a comment after I post it?

Microsoft's help page says editing comments is not currently available. Guest and anonymous users can view comments but cannot add or delete them.

Should I use comments or a column for important notes?

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: use a column for anything that must trigger an action or be reported on, and use comments for discussion.