A monitor can tell you about a change in three ways: an alert on your phone or computer, an email, or a message in Discord. Use any mix of them. All three are set up under Notifications in Settings.

If you only set up one, make it alerts on your phone. It is the quickest to turn on and it doesn't use your email allowance.

Alerts on your phone or computer

These are the same pop-up alerts your phone shows for a message. Each phone, tablet and computer is switched on separately, so do this on every one you want alerts on.

1. On that device, open StockWatch and go to Settings.
2. Find Push Notifications and flip the switch.
3. Your browser asks whether StockWatch may send you notifications. Say yes.
4. Press Send test. An alert should pop up within a few seconds.

On an Android phone or a computer, that's it. An iPhone needs one thing first.

On an iPhone or iPad

Apple only lets a website send alerts once it is on your Home Screen. You do this once.

1. Open stock-watch.co.uk in Safari. If you tapped a link in Instagram, Facebook or another app, you are in that app's own browser: tap its ••• menu and choose Open in Safari.
2. Tap Share. On newer iPhones it is under the ••• button.
3. Choose Add to Home Screen. You may need to scroll down to find it.
4. Open StockWatch from your Home Screen and sign in again. It asks once more because the Home Screen version keeps its own sign-in.
5. Press Turn on alerts on the banner at the top, and allow notifications when your iPhone asks. If the banner isn't there, flip the Push Notifications switch in Settings.

This needs iOS 16.4 or newer. On an older iPhone, use email.

If alerts on a device stop

• An iPhone that has gone quiet. Now and then an iPhone drops a site's permission after a few days. Open StockWatch, and if Settings says "Push notifications need re-enabling on this device", flip the switch back on.
• "You've blocked notifications for StockWatch." The browser was told no at some point. Click the lock icon in the address bar, allow notifications, then reload the page.
• A device you no longer use. Devices receiving push in Settings lists every device that is switched on. Revoke turns one off and leaves the others alone.

Email

Email is the one that catches people out. Four things have to be on before a single email is sent, and all four start off, so that a monitor never spends your monthly email allowance without you asking it to.

1. In Settings, flip the switch on Email Notifications.
2. Under Add an email, type your address and press the green plus button. The paper plane next to a saved address sends a test email.
3. Under Email me about, tick what you want emails for. Restocks is the one most people are after, and it covers Pokemon Center queue alerts too.
4. On each monitor you want emails from, press Edit and switch on Email me as well. On some monitors it reads "Email me this monitor's alerts".

Step 4 has two shortcuts. When the card in Settings says email is switched off on some of your monitors, the Turn on for all button beside it does every one of them at once. And when you set up a monitor step by step, or turn on queue alerts, Email me too switches on all four in one press.

The monthly email allowance

Each plan includes a number of alert emails a month: 30 on Free, 300 on Standard and 1,500 on Power User. The count starts again on the 1st of each month. Pokemon Center queue alerts never count towards it.

The Email Notifications card shows how many you have used. If you run out, a banner tells you the day email starts again. Until then your alerts still show in StockWatch and on any phone or computer you've turned alerts on for, which is a good reason to set up both.

To make the allowance last, keep email for the monitors that matter most, and narrow a busy shop down with keywords.

Discord

Discord alerts arrive through a webhook, which is a private link that lets StockWatch post in one channel of a server. You need a server where you are allowed to manage webhooks. Your own will do, and making one is free.

1. In Discord, open the server's menu and choose Server Settings, then Integrations, then Webhooks.
2. Press New Webhook, choose the channel the alerts should go to, then press Copy Webhook URL.
3. In StockWatch Settings, paste it into the box on Discord Notifications and press the green plus button.
4. Press the paper plane next to it. A test message should appear in your channel.

This is easiest from Discord on a computer. Keep the link to yourself, because anyone who has it can post in that channel.

Each monitor has two Discord extras under More options: Ping @everyone in Discord, and Send to a different Discord channel for a monitor that deserves a channel of its own.

Check it works

Open any monitor and press Test alert. It sends a test restock alert to everything you've set up and tells you which ones it used. If one hasn't arrived within a minute, that is the one to look at.

A monitor marked Reaches nobody is running but has no way of telling you. Open it and it offers the quickest fix.

Choosing what you hear about

Which changes a monitor tells you about is set on the monitor itself, in its What should we tell you about? list, and not in Settings. Creating a monitor goes through it.

Two more places alerts turn up

• The Chrome extension shows alerts on your computer while Chrome is open. See The Chrome extension.
• Keyword tasks send particular products to a Discord channel or an email address of their own. See Keyword routing.