Stop mailing students about hidden files.

[krister]

Hi.

I uploaded a file to a Canvas course that was invisible for the students as they were not suppose to see it yet.

However, the system mailed the students with the file saying it had been attached to the course.

This caused some major issues for us.

Is there any way to stop that happening in the future?

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

Hi   @krister  , and welcome to the Canvas Community!

If you disable the Files tab in the course navigation menu, then students will not receive notifications when files are added to the course.

From the Notifications PDF...

I hope this is helpful,

Kelley

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi  @krister ...

In addition to the information that  @kmeeusen  has provided, I thought I'd mention that many instructors hide things like the "Files", "Pages", "Assignments", and "Quizzes" navigation menus in their courses and only have the "Modules" button available to students.  You can build your modules out any way you want (including files, pages, assignments, and quizzes), and you can even create your content pages to include links to those files, other pages, other assignments, other quizzes, etc.  So, Kelley is correct that hiding the "Files" navigation menu would help in your situation, and then you can still build out the content via your "Modules" screen to include those files you've already uploaded to your course.  How do I manage Course Navigation links?  I hope this helps, Krister.