How to move from Google Alerts to AyeWatch, alert by alert

If you want to move from Google Alerts to AyeWatch, plan on about two minutes per alert. Nothing gets exported. You open your list of Google alerts, read each query, and write it again as a short sentence that describes what you actually want to hear about. This guide covers the order to do it in, how to rewrite a query, and which alerts are fine to leave where they are.

Start with an honest list

Open google.com/alerts and look at the "My alerts" section. For each alert, write down three things on a scratch pad:

• The query, including any quotes or minus signs you added over the years.
• The settings: how often, which sources, and whether it sends "only the best results" or all of them.
• What you did with the last ten emails it sent. Opened one? Forwarded one? Deleted all ten?

The third column sorts the list for you. Alerts you act on are the ones worth moving. Alerts you delete unread are either too noisy, which AyeWatch can fix, or not needed at all, which nothing can fix.

Rewrite the query as a sentence

Google Alerts reports new search results that match a query. AyeWatch reads each new item and checks it against a rule you wrote in plain English, so the rule can say what counts and what does not.

Take a common alert: "Acme Robotics" -stock. In AyeWatch the same need becomes a monitor such as:

"Acme Robotics product launches, funding news, executive changes and customer complaints. Ignore stock price chatter and articles that only list Acme in passing."

That sentence carries the exclusions with it. You no longer keep a growing list of minus terms, because the AI decides whether an item is about the thing you care about, rather than whether a string appears on the page.

AyeWatch's own example works the same way. A monitor called "Federal Reserve interest rate decisions" uses the rule: alert when the Fed announces a rate change or new policy guidance, and ignore articles that only mention the Fed.

Pick the right kind of monitor

A single Google alert sometimes hides two different jobs. AyeWatch splits them:

The last row is something Google Alerts never did. It watches for new search results, not edits to a page you already know about. If you had an alert set up only in the hope that it would catch a page update, make that a Webpages monitor instead.

Set how often each monitor checks

Google Alerts gives three speeds: as it happens, at most once a day, or at most once a week. AyeWatch gives each monitor its own schedule. On paid plans, Auto mode checks more often while a topic is busy and backs off when it is quiet. Custom lets you pick an interval yourself.

The bigger difference is what happens after a check. Google Alerts sends every new result that matches your words. AyeWatch reads each item against your plain-English rule and sends only the ones that fit, with a short summary and the source link. Paid plans start at $9 a month.

Choose where alerts land

Google Alerts sends email to the Google account you set it up under. AyeWatch puts every alert in your feed and sends a push notification on iOS or Android on every plan. Paid plans add email alerts, a daily digest email, Slack, Discord, signed webhooks and the REST API. You choose channels per topic, so a launch watch can post to a team Slack channel while a slow industry topic only shows up in the daily digest.

Test before you delete anything

Start on the Free Preview. It gives three lifetime monitoring runs and no card. Pick the three alerts you act on most and rebuild those first. Leave the Google versions running so you can compare what each one caught.

When you move to a paid plan, there is no contract and no cancellation fee, and you keep access to the end of the billing period if you stop.

What to leave on Google Alerts

Some alerts are fine as they are. If you watch for a rare string, such as your own name or a product codename that never shows up by accident, Google Alerts sends that email for nothing, and there is little reason to pay for it. Keep those, and move the alerts that bury one useful link under a pile of passing mentions.

A sensible order

1. Rebuild the alert you act on most.
2. Rebuild the noisiest alert, the one you usually delete unread.
3. Add one Webpages monitor for a page you check by hand.
4. Compare for a week, then delete the Google versions you no longer need.

When you are ready, create your first AyeWatch monitor and paste in the query you rewrote above. The side-by-side feature table is on AyeWatch's Google Alerts comparison page.