Announcements in Canvas

Canvas allows you to post an announcement to your class if you have updates such as course material, class cancellations, join information for a Zoom session, special guests, etc. These announcements will be sent to your students according to their notification preferences.

IMPORTANT: Your Canvas course must be published before posting an announcement if you would like your students to be notified. See How do I publish a course? for more information on how to do this.

Default notification preferences for announcements

Canvas sets a default notification frequency for each user according to their role. By default, Canvas:

will notify your students immediately by email when an announcement is posted
will not notify you of an announcement that you created

If you would like to adjust your notification settings so that you get an email notification when you post an announcement, please follow the instructions in Canvas' How do I manage my Canvas notification settings? guide to adjust the "Announcement Created By You" setting.

Note: Your students are also able to adjust their Notification Preferences. If a student doesn't receive your announcement via email, it may be because they've opted to receive push notifications from the Canvas mobile app or adjusted the frequency of the notifications they receive by email.

Posting an announcement to a course

Open the Announcements tool by clicking it in your course navigation
Click the "+ Add Announcement" button towards the top of the page
In the screen that opens, enter the subject of your announcement in the Topic Title box (labeled 1 in the image below) and the body of your announcement in the Rich Content Editor box (labeled 2 in the image below)
(OPTIONAL) When creating an announcement, you also have the option to add a file attachment, allow comments, or delay posting until a later date
- How do I attach a file to an announcement in a course?
- What options do I have when posting an announcement?
- How do I schedule an announcement to post later?
At the bottom of the page, click the "Publish" button to finish posting your announcement

If you see an eye icon with a slash through it to the right of Announcements after posting an announcement, you may need to adjust your course's navigation menu to enable the Announcements tool. Students will still receive notifications about your announcements even if this tool is currently disabled so you will not need to post them again after enabling it.

Showing recent announcements on your course home page

In addition to notifications, you can also ensure that your announcements are seen by displaying them at the top of your course's home page. You can show announcements on the home page or adjust the number of announcements shown by changing the options in your course's Settings page. Announcements on the home page will only display any text or link content, students will still need to click into the announcement to view images or other media.