How to turn on transaction alerts at Capital One

Find the alerts page

1. Sign in at capitalone.com.
2. Click your profile icon in the top right corner.
3. Choose Alerts.

The page has two parts. Profile Alerts covers security notices, such as a changed email address or password, for all your accounts at once. Account Alerts is where the purchase alerts are, set up one card at a time.

Capital One's help page on account settings says alerts can also be managed in the Capital One mobile app. We've only checked the website.

Turn on instant purchase notifications

1. In Account Alerts, choose your card from the menu on the right.
2. Under Security and fraud, open Instant purchase notifications.
3. Set Amount to $0.
4. Under Email, tick the Gmail address you'll use for tracking. The setting saves as soon as you tick the box.

Capital One describes this alert as: “We'll alert you when a purchase is made that's greater than the set amount. Enter $0 to be alerted about all purchases.” A higher amount means smaller purchases, like coffee or parking, won't be reported.

Choose email rather than text messages. Email leaves a record that can be filed and read later, which is what makes the alerts useful for tracking. If you have more than one Capital One card, choose each card from the menu and turn the alert on for it too.

Send the alerts to a Gmail label

With the amount set to $0, you'll get an email for every purchase. A Gmail filter keeps them out of your inbox and collects them in one place:

1. In Gmail on a computer, click Show search options in the search bar.
2. In the From field, enter capitalone@notification.capitalone.com, the address Capital One sends purchase alerts from. If your alerts come from a different address, use that one.
3. Click Create filter.
4. Select Skip the Inbox (Archive it) and Apply the label, and choose or create a label such as Expenses.
5. Select Also apply filter to matching conversations so alerts already in your mailbox get the label too.
6. Click Create filter.

Capital One sends some other notices from this address too, so the label may collect a few emails that aren't purchases. If you'd like to keep those in your inbox, you can also enter the purchase alerts' subject, A new transaction was charged to your account, in the Subject field. This step is optional if you use our app, Bankless Budget, which recognizes emails that aren't purchases and doesn't add them to your budget.

What these alerts don't cover

• Amounts can change. Each alert notes that it's sent “for both purchases and pending authorizations, such as car rentals, hotel reservations and gas purchases, even if an actual transaction hasn't taken place.” A restaurant tip is added later, and at gas pumps the first amount is often a placeholder that's usually less than what you paid, with the actual total settled afterward.
• No categories. An alert tells you the merchant and the amount, not what kind of purchase it was.
• Only what you set up. Cash, and any card without the alert turned on, won't appear.
• Checked on a credit card. We followed these steps with a Capital One credit card. Checking and savings accounts may offer different alerts.

It's worth reviewing your alert settings from time to time, and after you get a new card.

Can Capital One alert you when you're close to your budget?

Partly. On the website, two of its alerts let you choose an amount. Both are in Account Alerts, under Balances and credit:

• Balance above $___ alerts you when your card's balance goes over the amount you set.
• Available credit below $____, which Capital One describes as: “We'll alert you when the available credit on the account drops below the set threshold.” That's about your credit limit, which Capital One sets, not your budget.

The balance alert is the one to use. Set it a little below what you mean to spend on the card and you'll hear when you're getting close. It's a rough stand-in, though. A card balance isn't this month's spending: it includes anything you haven't paid off yet, and it drops when you make a payment. It also covers one card, and it can't tell you you're close to your grocery or eating-out budget.

A budgeting app can, from the purchase notifications you've just turned on. Every purchase now arrives as an email, so the app can add up the month by category, across every card you've set up.

Using the alerts with Bankless Budget

Bankless Budget, the app we make, turns these alerts into a spending dashboard and a monthly budget. It reads the alerts in the Gmail label you choose and sends each alert's text to Google's Gemini AI, which pulls out the purchase details, like the merchant, amount and date, and suggests a category. On the Free plan you start each import yourself; on Plus, alerts are imported as they arrive. We don't ask for your Capital One login.

On Plus it can also email you when a category goes over its budget, when the month's spending goes over, or when the month is heading over budget at its current pace. Each of those emails is off until you turn it on, and none of them includes amounts or merchants.