# Canceling a Category "Watch"
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** completed
**Created:** [2014年一月22日 15:38 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124 "2014-01-22T15:38:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jgordon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jgordon)
#### Post date: [2014年一月22日 15:38 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/1 "2014-01-22T15:38:04Z")
I was watching a category and then decided to unwatch it. I went to my preferences and removed it from the Watched section and then I saved my preferences. The category no longer showed up in the Watched section of my preferences. Unfortunately I continued to receive emails from the same watched category. When I went into that category under a topic, I saw in the Watching pulldown, that I was indeed, still watching that category. So I selected that pulldown and muted the category. I’m thinking that will now work, but it’s a little confusing when you remove a category from your watched preferences only to find out you’re still watching it.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2014年一月22日 17:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/2 "2014-01-22T17:30:05Z")
The work a category preference does can be best described as
> When a new topic is created in (foo) category, automatically set its notification state to (bar)
Removing a category preference would not reset all existing topics in (foo) category to a different notification state, it just stops _future_ topics from having their notification state set to (bar).
Mute is perhaps different because it is so extreme, mute means “I hate this category with the fire of a thousand suns, every time you show a topic in this category to me I will kill a kitten.” (I may be exaggerating for effect, but mute at the category level basically means make this whole category stop _existing_, so vast suppression in the UI.)
This is probably another request for bulk setting of topic data (category, notification state, etc) on a lot of topics at once through the UI. Has come up dozens of times since launch, we need to get to it eventually.
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### Author:  [@BhaelOchon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BhaelOchon)
#### Post date: [2014年一月22日 19:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/3 "2014-01-22T19:03:01Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> This is probably another request for bulk setting of topic data (category, notification state, etc) on a lot of topics at once through the UI.
Which reminds me, is there a way for me to view all of the topics that I’m tracking, watching, or muted? One of @sam’s happy new query strings, perhaps? A new view on the user page? Bulk actions would be great, but if I can’t find all of my watching topics in one place, I’m still going to have to hunt around and cherry-pick them.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2014年一月22日 19:16 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/4 "2014-01-22T19:16:29Z")
Nope, we need to do that too at some point.
Although there is a very strong power law in effect here – technically I am tracking thousands of topics here on meta (as I have my profile preferences set to auto-track every new topic created), but it rarely matters since nobody replies to ancient topics they can’t even find.
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### Author:  [@jgordon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jgordon)
#### Post date: [2014年一月22日 19:22 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/5 "2014-01-22T19:22:38Z")
Thanks for explaining. Save the kittens, though 😉
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [2016年六月28日 08:36 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/6 "2016-06-28T08:36:59Z")
This is now implemented per:
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/1411eedad3d1715d7a58a08ab77630f73844a1c7](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/1411eedad3d1715d7a58a08ab77630f73844a1c7)
When you unwatch a category you also get a chance to unwatch all the old topics in that category when saving user prefs.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [2016年七月8日 07:13 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/7 "2016-07-08T07:13:26Z")
Significantly improved per:
> [@Watching and tracking implementation for tags and categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-and-tracking-implementation-for-tags-and-categories/46987):
>
> I just revised the implementation of “tracking” and “watching” of tags and categories: Watching categories and tags has always been a rather limited feature. When you started watching a category you would only watch topics in that category from that time on. (with an edge case that allowed you to also watch recategorized old topics) This limitation was … hmm … limiting. Start watching #Bug and you would not be notified on a large amount of current #Bug discussion on historic topics. T…
Cancelling a watch is trivial and implicit.
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### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [2025年十二月4日 10:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/8 "2025-12-04T10:12:27Z")