SharePoint 2010 - How to temporarily disable alerts being sent for a document library

Question

I need to make changes to a lot of files in a document library. A lot of users have e-mail alerts enabled on this folder. How can I temporarily disable alerts being sent for this document library?

I've found an option for the web application in Central Administration. But this is for the entire web application, and I don't know if this removes the existing alerts, or simply deactivates them: Central Administration->Web application management->general settings

How can I disable alerts being sent for a document library?

Thank you for reading.

Answer 1

Make a console application with the following code to Disable/Enable alerts on a SharePoint 2010/2007 list/Library.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;
using System.IO;

namespace EnableDisableAlertsInList
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string site;
            string web;
            string list;
            string option;
            SPSite tmpSite = null;
        try
        {
            //Get the site collection , Sub-site, Lists
            if (args.Length != 3)
            {
                //Site collection
                Console.WriteLine("Enter the Site collection URL (E.g.)'http://intranet.company.com' : \n ----------------------------------- \n");
                site = Console.ReadLine();

                //Sub-Site
                Console.WriteLine("\n Enter the Sub-Site URL (E.g.) '/Sales/us' (  '/' for root web): \n -------------------------------------- ");
                web = Console.ReadLine();

                //List
                Console.WriteLine("\n Enter the List Name(Title): (E.g) 'Announcements' : \n -------------------------------------- ");
                list = Console.ReadLine();

                //Option ON or OFF
                Console.WriteLine("\n Enter the Option ON or OFF: \n ----------------------------------- \n ");
                option = Console.ReadLine();

            }
            else
            {
                site = args[0];
                web = args[1];
                list = args[2];
                option = args[3];
            }


            tmpSite = new SPSite(site);
            SPWeb tmpWeb = tmpSite.OpenWeb(web);
            SPList tmpList = tmpWeb.Lists[list];

            long alertCounter = 0;
            foreach (SPAlert tmpAlert in tmpWeb.Alerts)
            {
                option = option.ToUpper();

                if (option == "ON") //Turn it ON
                {
                    if ((tmpAlert.List.Title == tmpList.Title) & (tmpAlert.Status == SPAlertStatus.Off))
                    {
                        tmpAlert.Status = SPAlertStatus.On;
                        Console.WriteLine("Turning ON Alert: {0} in List: {1}", tmpAlert.Title, tmpList.Title);
                        tmpAlert.Update();
                        alertCounter++;
                    }
                }
                else if (option == "OFF") //Turn it ON
                {
                    if ((tmpAlert.List.Title == tmpList.Title) & (tmpAlert.Status == SPAlertStatus.On))
                    {
                        tmpAlert.Status = SPAlertStatus.Off;
                        Console.WriteLine("Turning OFF Alert: {0} in List :{1}", tmpAlert.Title, tmpList.Title);
                        tmpAlert.Update();
                        alertCounter++;
                    }

                }
            }

            //Just to pause
            Console.WriteLine("Done, Processed {0} Alerts! Press a key to Exit.", alertCounter);
            Console.ReadLine();

        }

        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message);
            System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry("Disable/Enable Alerts", ex.Message);
            Console.ReadLine();
        }

        finally
        {
            //Dispose of the Root Site Object
            tmpSite.Dispose();
        }
    }
}
}

Source

Hope the above code helps you :)