There is nothing worse than missing out on a great Craigslist deal just because you were too late to the party. By setting up alerts for what you need, always stay on top of the game and get notified when someone posts an item you are looking for. Alerts can be set for Email as well as SMS. Let us look at both of these ways in more detail.
How to set up Email Notifications?
Craigslist has built-in email alerts that can be enabled in a few simple steps,
Step one: Open the Craigslist website and carry out a search like usual. For example, if you are looking for houses to rent in Boston. Then head over to Craigslist Boston and put in the other parameters such as your budget for the rent, the number of bedrooms you need, and the locality you need it in. The more specific the requirements, the better as highly specific searches are run more often, and thus you will end up receiving more alerts.
After you have completed the search, all you have to do is click on the “Save Search” option that can be found on the right of the screen. For those users who aren’t signed into craigslist, the browser will send out a prompt to either login or create a new account. Creating an account is simple, and it won’t take too much time, but it saves you a lot of search time in the long run.
Once this is all done, you will be directed to a Searches Page in the account settings page on Craigslist. Click on the alert checkbox found at the left of the search you have saved, and you will receive email alerts. These email notifications are sent to the email that you used to register on Craigslist. All the searches you have ever saved can be found on this page, and you can activate, deactivate, edit, or even delete these searches once the job is done. To stop receiving the alerts, you can click on the checkbox in the alert column and disable the alert.
Setting up push notifications on the phone:
This is a little trickier than the email alerts as Craigslist doesn’t have built-in phone alerts. You will need to use an If this, then that (IFTTT) service using the IFTTT app on your phone in 10 simple steps.
Step 1: Go to the IFTTT app and create a new account if you don’t already have one.
Step 2: Click on “My Applets” and select New Applet.
Step 3: Click on the “This” link on the page with the new Applet.
Step 4: Find and choose the “Classifieds” option.
Step 5: You will find an option called “New Post From Search,” click on it.
Step 6: Copy the link of the Craigslist Search and paste it in the box below. To get this link, copy the web address that you can find in the address bar of the browser.
Step 7: Click on the “Create Trigger” option.
Step 8: Once you are done with the If condition, it is time for the then part. Click on the “That” link and set up the outcome if the trigger is activated.
Step 9: Choose the “Notification” option in the list of services provided. Choose the “send me a push notification” action. By default, choosing this action will send your phone a push notification that has a title as well as a clickable link. Clicking on “Create action” will result in you accepting this setting.
Step 10: Last but not least, when you are done creating the action, click on “Finish” to save the settings.
Now that you have set it up, all that’s left is to switch the Applet on, and you are good to go. You can easily toggle these applets on and off whenever needed. Now you can count on being the first to know of any new deal that is posted on Craigslist, like apartments for rent on Craigslist Boston.
