How to send email notifications for comments in Drupal 7 with actions & triggers (or the Rules module)

Do you have a Drupal 7 web site? Do you want to get an email when someone comments, so you don't have to check your site all the time? Don't panic! Here's how you do it.

You don't need to install any new modules to do this in Drupal 7. All that's needed is a little configuring and to copy and paste in a short bit of code.

Update: Both the easiest & most powerful way to get these notification emails (in Drupal 6 or 7) is to install and configure the Rules Module. NodeOne has a great set of video tutorials on their site explaining how to use the Rules module. I've also put example code for a Rules-based email notification in the comments to this post for both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7. 

• Step 1: Getting started
• Step 2: Taking action
• Step 3: Triggering your action
  • Sample Email Code
• Step 4: Testing it out
• For more information

Step 1: Getting started

Go to the Modules page, and make sure that you enable the Trigger module (at Modules > Trigger) and turn on Clean URLs (at Administer > Configuration > Search and metadata). These are core modules/settings in Drupal 7, so you don't have to install them, just turn them on.

Step 2: Taking action

Your next step will be to create an action, so that drupal can perform it when a comment is saved.

Go to Configuration > System > Actions.

On the Actions page, choose the dropdown for Create an Advanced Action at the bottom of the page, and click on Send email and then Create.

On the Configure an advanced action page, fill in the first 3 fields, as in these examples:

• Label: Send an email notification to site owner upon comment save
• Recipient: siteowner@adellefrank.com
• Subject: New Comment at AdelleFrank.com

The trickiest part of this entire endeavor is filling in the Message field, but here's some easy sample code that you could just copy and paste in:
### Node
[comment:node:title] at: [site:url]node/[comment:node:nid]#comment-[comment:cid]

### Comment
[comment:author:name]
[comment:title]
[comment:body]

### Review
[site:url]admin/content/comment/approval

Those bits of code within square brackets are called tokens. Tokens are placeholders, little bits of code that represent commonly-used values. To find more tokens in Drupal 7, you must have two modules enabled. First, turn on the core Help module, which you should have enabled anyway...because it's helpful.  However, I find it bizarre that, even though you're only using tokens included in the Core, you must still install and turn on the Token module, too.

Only then can you point your web browser to the Help > Token page at http://www.yoursite.com/admin/help/token and get a list of all the tokens you can choose among.

Step 3: Triggering your action

At the top of the page, click on the Triggers link to go to the next step. This page can also be found underneath Structure > Triggers.

Be sure to choose the comments tab on the Triggers page.

You have a number of choices, but since mine is a solo blog, Trigger: After saving a new comment seems most appropriate. Click on the dropdown instructing you to Choose an action and click underneath system on the name of the Action (Send an email notification to site owner upon comment save) you created in Step 2 and then click Assign.

Step 4: Testing your comments form

Now, as far as you know, your web site is set up to email you when someone saves a comment.  To be absolutely certain that your new action and trigger are working correctly, you need to test it.

Browse to any page, article, or blog post on your site and post a comment.

Check your email at the address you chose in step 2. Does this email give you the information you expected?

Remember to delete your test comment off of your site.

For more information

• Token module Handbook on drupal.org
• Email notifications in Drupal 6