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The Canvas Inbox is a messaging tool used to communicate with students in your course.
- You can send a message to all students, one or more groups, or selected students.
- By default, students will receive an email notification about the message.
- Messages can be created and read in the Canvas mobile app and will notify you when a new message arrives.
- You have one inbox for all your courses but can filter by course.
- Once a course has concluded, you can no longer message students in that course, but you can still message users with the Teacher, TA, or Designer role.
- The gradebook also has a "Message Students Who" feature where you can send a message based on various submission options (no submission, scored less than X, etc.)
Note: students set their own notification preferences, so they could disable the email notification or have notifications disabled on their mobile device. They can always view the message within Canvas. Also, a course must be published in Canvas before you can create messages for students.
This article contains instructions on the following topics:
Creating a Message in Canvas
To create a message in Canvas:
- In the Global Navigation, click the Inbox link.
- Click the Compose button:
- From the Course drop-down menu, select your desired course from the list. You can also search for it by name in the box above the list.
- Click the Address Book button next to the To field to select your users. Send the message to All in the course, or can filter out recipients by selecting Teachers, Students, or Student Groups.
- If sending to multiple individual users, hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Cmd key (Mac) while selecting. You can also type the user's name into the To field to search for a recipient.
- Enter a subject.
- The Send individual messages check-box will create a separate message for each recipient. Use this if you don't want a user to see who else received the message.
- Type your message in the body. If you include a link in the body, it will become clickable once the message is sent.
- You can attach a file or include a video recording using the buttons at the bottom.
Note: We encourage you to use Panopto links or videos hosted in OneDrive rather than relying on the media button, as those platforms offer more storage space.
- Click Send.
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Message Students Who
You can use the Gradebook to send messages to your students. Message recipients are filtered based on specific assignment categories:
- Have submitted—students who have submitted the assignment, even if they have a grade or not.
- Have not yet submitted—students who haven't submitted the assignment, even if they have been manually awarded a grade.
- Have not been graded—students whose assignments have not yet been graded (submitted or unsubmitted).
- Scored less than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment less than X number of points.
- Scored more than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment more than X number of points.
Each student receives an individual message, ensuring privacy is maintained.
- In your Course Navigation, click the Grades link:
- Hover the cursor over the column header and click the Options icon.
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Click Message Students Who.
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In the Compose Message window, you can select a category of students to message [1], manage the recipients by role or individually [2], enter a message title [3], and compose a message [4].
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Click Show all recipients if you want to see a list who will receive the message; you can remove any student you don't wish to include. When ready, click Send.
The message will be sent according to student's notification settings, and a copy will be added to the Sent folder of your Canvas Inbox tool.