diff --git a/app/templates/views/activity/notifications.html b/app/templates/views/activity/notifications.html
index 0002ac632..a4bc2a3c8 100644
--- a/app/templates/views/activity/notifications.html
+++ b/app/templates/views/activity/notifications.html
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
       notifications,
       caption="Recent activity",
       caption_visible=False,
-      empty_message='No messages found',
+      empty_message='No messages found  (messages are kept for 7 days)'|safe,
       field_headings=['Recipient', 'Status'],
       field_headings_visible=False
     ) %}
diff --git a/app/templates/views/notifications.html b/app/templates/views/notifications.html
index de232e385..be9dc9b60 100644
--- a/app/templates/views/notifications.html
+++ b/app/templates/views/notifications.html
@@ -52,13 +52,13 @@
     </form>
   {% endif %}
 
-  <p class="bottom-gutter">
-    {% if current_user.has_permissions('view_activity') %}
+  {% if current_user.has_permissions('view_activity') %}
+    <p class="bottom-gutter">
       <a href="{{ download_link }}" download="download" class="heading-small">Download this report</a>
       &emsp;
-    {% endif %}
-    Data available for 7 days
-  </p>
+      Data available for 7 days
+    </p>
+  {% endif %}
 
   {{ ajax_block(
     partials,
diff --git a/tests/app/main/views/test_activity.py b/tests/app/main/views/test_activity.py
index cf9929be3..a128445cd 100644
--- a/tests/app/main/views/test_activity.py
+++ b/tests/app/main/views/test_activity.py
@@ -289,7 +289,7 @@ def test_shows_message_when_no_notifications(
     )
 
     assert normalize_spaces(page.select('tbody tr')[0].text) == (
-        'No messages found'
+        'No messages found (messages are kept for 7 days)'
     )