# Allow category notification setting to cascade to sub-categories
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** pr-welcome
**Created:** [June 7, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377 "2016-06-07T15:33:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@rhyolight](https://meta.discourse.org/u/rhyolight)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377/1 "2016-06-07T15:33:14Z")
I have two levels of categories in my forum. I would like to allow users to change their notification settings on the top-level category with an option to apply this setting to the sub-categories within the parent. This prevents them from needing to react to category changes by once again updating their sub-category settings.
I’m thinking something like a checkbox to enable the notification selection to apply to all sub-categories.
---
### Author:  [@Chodu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chodu)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377/2 "2016-06-07T15:45:51Z")
a main section may have dozens of sub-sections, it’s annoying to mute them all manually.
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2016, 9:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377/3 "2016-06-08T09:34:16Z")
I think a modal would be better. That way when you change your tracking status, we say something like:
```markdown
Would you like to apply this change to *all* underlying sub-categories?
You're currently Watching 2 sub-categories, and Tracking 1 sub-category.
```
This is what makes it a not-so trivial change though. A convenience feature like this one needs to communicate very clearly what it does, so that users don’t shoot themselves in the foot. No one wants to make a mistake in bulk 😰
If a clear UX path is laid out, we’d probably be open to a PR on this one.
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### Author:  [@nedbat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nedbat)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377/4 "2019-09-20T17:10:28Z")
Has anything happened in this area? My categories are still a bit in flux, and they might continue to shift. I would like someone to be able to set a notification for a main category, and have it apply to all sub-categories, even if new sub-categories get created later.
To me, conceptually, a topic that is in the “Main - Sub” category is also in the “Main” category. I expected that watching “Main” would notify me if someone created a topic in “Main - Sub”.
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### Author:  [@Thomas\_Beale](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Thomas_Beale)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2020, 11:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-category-notification-setting-to-cascade-to-sub-categories/45377/5 "2020-05-19T11:24:01Z")
> [@nedbat](#):
>
> To me, conceptually, a topic that is in the “Main - Sub” category is also in the “Main” category. I expected that watching “Main” would notify me if someone created a topic in “Main - Sub”.
Same here. We have been slowly creating a lot of sub-categories over the last few months, but only just realised we need to notify everyone to go and manually set their subscriptions to these sub-categories.
For me, the most obvious solution is to replicate the subscribe setting for all users on a top-level category to each new sub-categories created. This might result in a bit of over-subscription, but that’s easy for any user to correct via links in the emails.
Otherwise, Discourse is pretty fantastic.