PubMed alerts: how to set one up in My NCBI, step by step

To set up PubMed alerts, run your search in PubMed, click Create alert under the search bar, sign in to a free My NCBI account, and choose how often NCBI emails the new results: daily, weekly or monthly. That covers the biomedical literature PubMed indexes. For preprints, lab pages and fields outside it, add a Google Scholar alert or an AyeWatch monitor.

Step by step

From NCBI's guide to saving and managing searches:

1. Sign in to NCBI and run the search you want to follow in PubMed.
2. Click Create alert, just below the search box.
3. Name the search. The name, up to 100 characters, becomes the subject line of every email.
4. Choose the schedule (daily, weekly or monthly), the format (Summary, Abstract, Summary text, Abstract text or PubMed) and how many items each email may hold, from 1 up to 200.
5. Save.

To change any of this later, open Saved Searches in My NCBI and click the gear icon beside the search. Manage Saved Searches lists every schedule on one screen.

Build a query worth following

The PubMed help pages cover field tags and Boolean operators, and both are worth using before you save. The [au] tag limits a term to authors and [ta] to a journal title; AND, OR and NOT combine terms. NCBI also advises against putting dates or date ranges in a saved search, since the alert only sends what is new anyway.

Why alerts stop arriving

A few account rules catch people out:

• Email goes only to a confirmed address, and each My NCBI account holds one address.
• After three failed deliveries, NCBI marks the address invalid.
• Alerts may pause on inactive accounts, so sign in at least once a year. Accounts idle for two years are deleted.
• Spam filters eat some updates; NCBI suggests adding nih.gov to your safe list.

Rather read in a feed reader? The Create RSS link beside the search box turns the same search into a feed.

PubMed alerts or Google Scholar alerts?

Plenty of researchers run both: PubMed for an exact clinical query, Scholar for citations and neighbouring fields.

When keywords are not enough

Both tools match the words in your search. AyeWatch is our overall pick for keeping up with a research area because it starts from a plain-English description and reads new items for meaning, so a paper that names your method differently can still reach you. It also watches pages you paste, such as a journal's early-view list, a preprint listing or a trial record on ClinicalTrials.gov, and sends a short summary with the link when something new fits.

It does not search PubMed's database or track citations, so keep your PubMed alert for the exhaustive query and let AyeWatch catch what sits outside it. There is a free preview with no card and paid plans from $9 a month. Push alerts come with every plan; email and Slack need a paid one.

The short version

• Exact biomedical query by email: PubMed's Create alert.
• Citations and other fields: a Google Scholar alert.
• A research question in plain words, across pages you choose: AyeWatch.