The University of Washington is committed to keeping the campus community informed during emergencies and situations that might disrupt normal operations.
UW Alert Blog
The blog is updated when there’s an active alert. Additional information is posted on the blog as it becomes available.
Students: UW Alert text messages
To make it easier for students to receive UW Alert texts, UW adds the phone number from your UW student profile to the UW Alert system. If the number is for a cell phone, UW will send you UW Alerts via text.
Students who don’t want to receive texts can reply STOP to any UW Alert text message or text STOP to 79516 (except for students living on campus in Seattle, who must contact Housing & Food Services for account changes). You can also add your cell phone number to your UW Alert account yourself.
About UW Alert
UW Alert is the University of Washington’s emergency alert system, used to share information via email, text messages, loudspeakers, website banners and the UW Alert Blog.
UW faculty, staff and students in Bothell, Seattle, Tacoma and at UW Medicine can subscribe to receive UW Alert messages via text and email.
Learn more about how and when UW sends out UW Alert and UW Advisory messages.
Sign up
Sign up for UW Alert or manage your account.
Get help
If you need assistance with UW Alert, contact the help desk.
Note: A UW NetID is required. If you are currently signed up for UW Alert, please take a moment to verify and update your contact information. If you receive a notice that your UW Alert account is expiring, you can go to Manage Account to extend it.
How to sign up for UW Alerts
Students automatically receive email alerts via their UW email account. Students living in student housing in Seattle automatically receive text messages, too.
For text messages, UW will add student phone numbers to the UW Alert system. See below for directions to update or remove your UW Alert information.
You can add five additional email addresses and two additional cell phone numbers. Your subscription lasts for a year or until you no longer attend UW, whichever is sooner.
To sign up for text messages and add email addresses:
- Go to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account (you’ll be asked to sign in with your UW NetID and password first)
- Under SMS Numbers, add or edit your contact information. You can list up to three cell phone numbers. For each phone number, select your carrier.
- For email, add up to five additional email addresses.
- Each cell number registered will receive a message with a validation code. Login to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account and enter your validation code.
- Email accounts will receive a validation link via email. Use that link to validate your account.
- Choose which campus you want alerts from: In the purple bar at the top of the page, select Groups, then click subscribe for each campus you would like to receive alerts from or unsubscribe to stop receiving alerts from that campus. If you do not select a campus, you will not receive alerts.
Most UW employees automatically receive alerts via their UW email account. You can list three email addresses and two cell phone numbers. Your subscription lasts until you no longer are employed by the University.
To sign up for text messages and add email addresses:
- Go to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account (you’ll be asked to sign in with your UW NetID and password first)
- Under SMS Numbers, list up to two cell numbers. For each phone number, select your carrier.
- For email, add up to two additional email addresses.
- Each cell number registered will receive a message with a validation code. Login to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account and enter your validation code.
- Email accounts will receive a validation link via email. Use that link to validate your account.
- Choose which campus you want alerts from: In the purple bar at the top of the page, select Groups, then click subscribe for each campus you would like to receive alerts from. If you do not select a campus, you will not receive alerts.
Your student can register up to two cell phone numbers and three email addresses for UW Alerts. Please talk with your student if you would like to receive alert messages as only students can complete their UW Alert registration. UW Alerts are also posted on the UW Alert Blog, Facebook and X.
See information about how to get a UW NETID and sign up for UW Alerts. You will not be automatically registered. You must sign up to receive alerts.
UW Alert information is available on UW Alert Blog, Facebook and X. Email alerts and text messages are currently not available to community members.
UW Alert Frequently Asked Questions
UW Alert is a notification system that quickly informs the UW community about an emergency situation that poses an immediate potential threat to health and safety on or near campus. UW Alert messages are sent via email and text, as well as posted on Facebook, X and the UW Alert Blog. Incidents that prompt an alert message can include an active shooter, other violent crimes on or near campus, severe weather and hazardous materials (HazMat) responses. UW Alert messages are limited to 160 characters, so messages include a link to the UW Alert Blog for more information as it becomes available.
A UW Advisory works in the same way as UW Alert, but is used to make the community aware of a significant situation that could be disruptive but does not pose an immediate threat to health and safety. These could include power outages, phone outages that could affect 911 service, suspended campus operations and perceived threats which police have determined to be unfounded. If you sign up for UW Alert, you are automatically also subscribed for UW Advisory messages. Nearly all messages include a link to the emergency blog for more information.
If a serious emergency occurs on or near a UW campus, most of UW’s 60,000 students will not receive an alert via text message, only via email.
Only 8% of students have signed up to receive UW Alert text messages, as of November 2023. UW Alert emails are sent to all UW email addresses automatically, but most students have to navigate a multi-step online process to add their cell phone numbers for UW Alert texts.
To get emergency notices and directives to more students faster, UW will add student phone numbers to the UW Alert system starting at the end of January 2024.
The phone number is from your student profile. If the phone number in your student profile is incorrect, update your phone number online using My UW/SPS in the Address and Consent section.
You can update your contact information for your UW Alert account only (this will not change your student record) by logging into UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account.
- Login to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account and click Inactivate for each email address and cell phone number you would like to remove from your account.
- For text messages, you can also unsubscribe by replying STOP to any UW Alert text message or text STOP to 79516 (except for students living on campus in Seattle, who must contact Housing & Food Services for account changes).
- For email messages, you can also unsubscribe by clicking Unsubscribe at the bottom of any UW Alert email message.
Check your cell phone validation. You need to validate each cell phone number. Unvalidated numbers will not receive alerts.
- Go to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account (you’ll be asked to sign in with your UW NetID and password first).
- In SMS Numbers, check your cell number.
- Active means your number has been validated.
- If Unvalidated is listed, click Resend to send the validation code again. After you receive the code, login to your account and enter the code.
Make sure you’re signed up for a Group. If you do not select a campus, you will not receive alerts.
- Go to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account (you’ll be asked to sign in with your UW NetID and password first).
- In the purple bar at the top of the page, select Groups, then click subscribe for each campus you would like to receive alerts from.
If your number has been validated and you’re signed up for a group but are still not receiving texts, email help@uw.edu.
- Login to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account and click Inactivate for each email address and cell phone number you would like to remove from your account.
- For text messages, you can also unsubscribe by replying STOP to any UW Alert text message or text STOP to 79516.
- For email messages, you can also unsubscribe by clicking Unsubscribe at the bottom of any UW Alert email message.
If your cell phone carrier isn’t listed when signing up for UW Alert text messages, choose Other. This setting will work for most non-standard carrier US and Canadian mobile phones. International carriers are not supported for text alerts.
If you’ve switched between major U.S. cell phone carriers, your service will likely forward automatically. You can test your ability to receive UW Alerts via text message by texting TEST to 79516. If you receive a response message from Omnilert (the system that sends UW Alerts), then you should receive future messages.
If you do not receive the test message, login to UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account and update your cell phone carrier. If you need additional assistance, check with your cell phone provider or contact help@uw.edu.
No, international carriers are not supported for SMS text message alerts, only U.S.-based numbers.
To test that your cell phone will receive UW Alert messages, text the word TEST to 79516.
If you receive a response message from Omnilert (the system that sends UW Alerts), then you should receive future messages.
If you do not receive the test message, login to your UW Alert account and check your settings.
If you have set up a personal firewall on your mobile device to block unknown senders of messages, add shortcodes 70359, 79516, 50911 and 84483 to your list of approved senders.
If you need additional assistance, contact help@uw.edu.
Log in to your account at UW Alert Sign Up/Manage Account. Click the link that says Activate to receive messages again.
When a reliable description of the person or people responsible for a crime is available, it will be included in the UW Alert message or UW Alert blog. A suspect photo will be posted on the blog, if we have one. Suspect descriptions usually do not include race because they’ve proven inconsistent and unreliable. Research shows that the inclusion of race does not increase the likelihood a suspect will be identified and can do more harm than good.¹
A UW Alert is sent when there’s an immediate potential threat to the safety of the campus community. If a serious crime has occurred on or near campus but does not pose immediate potential danger, the UW sends a Notification of Criminal Incident in compliance with federal law requiring timely warning notification. This can happen when situations resolve too quickly for a UW Alert message to be useful, or when a crime has occurred but wasn’t known or reported until later. The notification is sent via email to students, faculty and staff and posted on the UWPD website.