Craigslist alerts for new listings
Craigslist already emails you when a saved search has new results, and for a lot of searches that is plenty. Dibs is for the ones where the first message wins.
3 saved searches free, no card.
What Craigslist’s own search alerts do
Read off Craigslist’s own help pages on 2026-09-22.
Save any search from its results page, sign in, and tick the “alert” box next to it in your account’s searches tab. Craigslist then emails you when the saved search has new results.
What it does
- Free. It needs a Craigslist account and nothing else.
- Runs on Craigslist’s side, so it keeps going with your computer off.
- Keeps every filter the search had, because it is the search.
- Shows up to 20 results per email, newest first.
What it doesn’t
- Say how often it checks. Craigslist’s help says the frequency depends on how many results the last alert had — fewer results, more frequent checks — and gives no interval.
- Reach you anywhere but email.
- Leave renewed, reposted or edited posts out: its help says those are included once they match.
- Let you edit a saved search. You make a new one and delete the old.
Use Craigslist’s own alert if the search is slow-moving — a rare part, a specific piece of furniture, a job category — or you need it to keep watching while your computer is off. It is free, it is Craigslist’s own, and it never stops because a laptop closed.
How dibs does it
Open your Craigslist search in Chrome, open the dibs side panel, click “Watch this search”. That is the setup.
- In your own browser
- Dibs re-opens the search in a collapsed background tab, signed in as you, and reads the listing results on it — nothing else on the page, and nothing on any other site.
- On your plan’s interval
- Free checks every 15 minutes. Paid plans run the searches you pick faster — Pro every 2 minutes, Power every minute. You only hear about listings it has not shown you before.
- Alerts where you look
- A browser notification, Telegram, Discord, an email digest or a signed webhook, with the photo, price, place and a link straight to the listing. Every channel is on every plan, free included.
- A history that keeps the photos
- Every listing a search has found stays in your history at dibs.deals with its picture, searchable by words and price, after Craigslist has taken it down. A listing whose price drops far enough alerts once more, with the old price.
- Marks on the page you are browsing — next release
- Switch it on in the side panel and, while you browse Craigslist yourself, dibs outlines listings that match a search you watch, tags the ones it already found, shows a price move on the card and greys out what your rules turned down. It ships in the next extension release; the version in the store today does not have it.
- On Craigslist in particular
- Checks on your plan’s interval, which is written on the plans page in minutes rather than decided by how many results the last email had.
- A repost at the same price does not alert again. A repost that is cheaper by enough alerts once, as a price drop.
- No Craigslist account needed. Open the search, open the side panel, click “Watch this search”.
What it costs
Plans differ on how many searches you watch and how often they run — never on how you hear about it.
- Free
- $03 saved searches, checked every 15 minutes
- Pro
- $12/moor $9.60/mo billed yearly10 saved searches: your top 3 checked every 2 minutes, the rest every 10 minutes
- Power
- $29/moor $23.20/mo billed yearly30 saved searches: your top 5 checked every minute, the rest every 5 minutes. Adds AI access to your searches and history.
What dibs won’t do
- Run with your computer off. Dibs checks from your own Chrome, so when the laptop is shut or Chrome is closed, it stops until you open it again. Craigslist’s own alert does not have that problem.
- Run on your phone. It is a Chrome extension on your computer; the alerts reach your phone through Telegram, Discord or email.
- One Craigslist region per search, because a search is a Craigslist page and Craigslist pages are per region. Watch two regions with two searches.
Questions people ask
- How do I set up Craigslist alerts?
- On Craigslist: run your search, click “save search”, sign in, and tick the alert box beside it in your account’s searches tab. With dibs: run the same search, open the dibs side panel in Chrome and click “Watch this search”.
- How often do Craigslist email alerts come?
- Craigslist does not publish an interval. Its help says a search that had fewer results in its last alert is checked more often. Each email shows up to 20 results.
- Is there a Craigslist alerts app?
- Craigslist’s own alerts are email. Dibs is a Chrome extension; the alert itself can go to your phone through Telegram, Discord or email, and to your desktop as a notification.
- Can I get Craigslist alerts by text or push notification?
- Not from Craigslist. Dibs sends new matches as a browser notification or to Telegram, Discord, email or a webhook of your own — every channel on every plan, including free.
Watch your first Craigslist search in about a minute.