How do I turn off everyone's notifications before messing with a library (SharePoint Online)?

Question

My department's SharePoint Online site has a library holding the minutes for our weekly project managers meeting. I want to have them ordered by the meeting date. I created a column in the library to hold the meeting date. I can add the meeting date by doing right click > properties from each file in the library in turn, and adding the meeting date manually in the 'meeting date' box that now appears as a property field.

My problem is that when I do that it sends an email notification to everyone in the department that a file in the library has changed. As there are over 40 files in the library I don't want to irritate my colleagues by having them sent 40+ notifications! So my question is how can I temporarily turn off notifications for this library while I add the info to the meeting date column?

I've tried Googling for the answer but I can't find it. Note that I'm something of a SharePoint newbie so a "for Dummies" type of answer would be appreciated!

As stated above, the SharePoint version in use is SharePoint Online (365 or 2013 I think).

Answer 1

Because you are using the Office 365 which provide no access to back-end. Their is no OOTB possible way to disable the alerts for the DL.

What i am thinking, kind of workaround. If you are site collection admin, then change the alert frequency i.e

• Change Type = New Items added( as you modifying, this will not generate alert). after your change you can put back.
• When to Send Alerts = Send a Daily / weekly summary.

Answer 2

I think a little communication may help with this. User email alerts are saved on each site they visit. Go to Settings > Site Settings and review the User Alerts section of the site to find out how who has email alerts on the site.

I would send an email to the users letting them know what your doing. The users have two choices they can either allow the emails to come in and delete them or they can manage their alert and delete it. Re-Creating a new email alert later when your done with the updates is easy and chances are they know how to do it if they have it set up already. The users just need to take a note as to what settings they had for the email alert.