Creating an email search alert in various databases is an easy way to ensure that you are keeping up with the newest published literature. PubMed is one of the most commonly used biomedical databases and thankfully creating an email search alert within PubMed is fairly simple to do by following the steps below.

1. From the HSL website (hsl.osu.edu), select "PubMed" from the "Top Resources" section of the homepage.
2. Click on "Log In" on the top right-hand side of the screen.
3. If you have never created an account before, you will want to go through the process of creating an account.
4. Once logged in, you will go back into PubMed to run your desired search.
5. Click on "Create Alert," found under the search box.
6. Complete the form
   1. Name the search whatever you would like
   2. Make sure that “Yes” is selected under the question about email alerts
   3. You can select the email that the alerts will go to, the number of results included in the email, as well as the frequency at which you will be receiving this search alert email.
7. To see your saved searches, click on your "My NCBI" username at the top right of the page; then select "Dashboard."
8. To delete a search, click on "Manage Saved Searches" at the bottom of the "Saved Searches" box. Then, select the box next to the saved search and click on the "Delete Selected Item(s)" button.
9. For help, click on "Help" or select a tutorial to view.

Some additional tips regarding setting up a search alert in PubMed include:

• Increasing the number of results included in your email to the maximum number of 200. This will help to ensure that your results are not cut off even if the search is quite large.
• You may also want to consider opting in to receiving your search alert email even when there are no new results. This will help reassure you that your search alert is in fact still working.
• If you need to edit your email search alert you can do so by clicking on the cog icon next to a given search name while in your NCBI Dashboard, and you can make changes to the saved search there. These changes can include editing the name of the search alert, updating the search terms used for the alert, and turning on/off the email alert feature.

Creating email search alerts is not exclusive to only PubMed. Many of the popular databases that you can find on the Health Sciences Library website include this feature. To find instructions on setting up email search alerts in other popular databases such as Web of Science, Embase, and databases that utilize the Ebsco platform check out the Keeping up with Literature page.

If you would like to view the instructions above alongside screenshots for how to set up email search alerts for PubMed, in addition to Web of Science, Embase, and the Ebsco platform you can also view our “Keeping up with the Literature” self-guided tutorial.