# Default email settings for a new user
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** email
**Created:** [April 22, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980 "2014-04-22T19:18:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/21 "2014-11-09T23:44:15Z")
Whew! Thanks, I thought you were talking about more than new user defaults and gining site Admins the ability to over-ride existing member preferences.
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/22 "2014-11-09T23:55:55Z")
I was also confused by that statement. @milen - this topic was opened to discuss Defaults for email settings. I recommend you open a new topic to outline your use case for ‘overrides’ so it can be discussed / debated independently.
---
### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/23 "2014-11-10T04:23:20Z")
> [@Mittineague](#):
>
> Isn’t an opt-out a requirement of the anti-SPAM laws?
There are lots of different laws out there. In the US, the CAN-SPAM act only requires opt-out information for commercial, non-transactional (unsolicited) email. Transactional messages, whose primary purpose is to communicate transactional content (like a reply to a post or new posts when requested), are mostly exempt from all of the requirements except accurately identifying the sender in the header information.
---
### Author:  [@jduke](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jduke)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/24 "2014-11-19T04:22:01Z")
We would also benefit from the ability to automatically assign notification status for new users. Same use case-- coming over from mailing lists.
---
### Author:  [@sinak1](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sinak1)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/25 "2014-11-26T02:07:10Z")
Any word on whether this’ll make it into version 1.2? I’m hoping to move [taskforce.is](https://taskforce.is) over to discourse (replacing Google Groups), and I think this is the main feature we’d need to make that happen.
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/26 "2015-01-16T20:43:33Z")
Are there any files that I can adjust myself in order to make this a reality. I want new users to be watching certain categories by default. If new user defaults are already in one of the configuration or as variables or arrays in the production files, then I can change it myself with nano.
I see here
> [@sam](#):
>
> Sure, site settings live in config/site\_settings.yml you need to add the setting there, then you would need to work through the models/user.rb file to figure out how to add the override.
>
> I would probably use NULL to denote default, amend places that look at it to use the default. If you need a hand you can start a dev topic and point us to your repo.
You can change default settings by just editing this file…is there something like a profile\_settings.yml file that allows one to edit default profile settings?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/27 "2015-01-16T23:54:33Z")
Not at the moment, no. Setting default user preferences for all users in Admin, Site Settings has been requested many times and it is on our list.
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/28 "2015-01-17T01:20:46Z")
When a new user is created and option variables and arrays are stored to
the data base, is this a file that I can edit and rebuild? is mailing list
mode an option that can be set to 0 or 1 or true or false in one of the
development files?
Even if a configuration file isn’t available or doesn’t exist, there has to
be a function somewhere that sets those variables?
---
### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/29 "2015-01-17T03:03:08Z")
> [@mochabcha](#):
>
> Even if a configuration file isn’t available or doesn’t exist, there has to
> be a function somewhere that sets those variables?
No, there isn’t a function that does that, that’s the problem.
Currently the database column defaults are used. I suppose you could change that, but…
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/30 "2015-01-19T15:11:57Z")
> [@riking](#):
>
> No, there isn’t a function that does that, that’s the problem.
>
> Currently the database column defaults are used. I suppose you could change that, but…
If you could point me in the direction of doing this (which files to edit and such)…That would help me tremendously. Right now I’m having to set the preferences of like 60 users individually, and again for every new user that signs up. Whatever I gotta edit, do or learn…please tell me.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/31 "2015-01-20T22:26:15Z")
At the very least you could do it at the Ruby command line by looping through the users! @riking can you assist with an example?
---
### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/32 "2015-01-20T22:45:52Z")
It won’t help very much because I’m not sure there’s a good way to remember who the new users are after the last run. Fixing them all is more suited to import situations, not having new users keep signing up.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/33 "2015-01-20T22:49:53Z")
I think in this case we want to loop through and set it for _all_ users regardless (perhaps skipping those where it is already set) but @mochabcha can confirm.
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/34 "2015-01-21T00:47:21Z")
It looks like I’m gonna have to learn some ruby coding. I also have the
issue of figuring out how I’m gonna get the old Google group imported into
discourse. What it looks like I’m going to have to do is use Portia to
screen scrape the pages into a format that bbPress can ingest and let the
bbPress to Discourse script do the rest. So i might have to learn python
also.
That example would definitely help me though @riking. And huge thanks to
you @codinghorror.
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/35 "2015-01-21T00:49:28Z")
Yes we do need to set the settings for all the users, regardless of whether or not they are new users or not. All users should be set to mailing list mode. new users signing up won’t be that often so I can do that manually. I’ll also be importing all previous users from the old Google Groups so all users will be in the data base to where I can set the looper to adjust the settings.
---
### Author:  [@mochabcha](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mochabcha)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/36 "2015-01-21T00:51:37Z")
my apologies, this message was a bit late now that I’m looking at the site.
---
### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2015, 7:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/37 "2015-03-10T07:01:15Z")
@codinghorror Is it possible now? Or is still on your list? I need to setup email preferences for new users
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/38 "2015-03-10T13:29:20Z")
@mochabcha @alefattorini
These two posts are of interest to you:
Set the defaults for new users:
[Setting defaults to enable mailing list mode-Temporary Solution](https://meta.discourse.org/t/setting-defaults-to-enable-mailing-list-mode-temporary-solution/25645/)
Fix (clobber) all settings for all users (regardless of age, or if they’d already opted out, so I suggest this as a one-time only charge.
[Edit a user preference for everyone or a subset of users](https://meta.discourse.org/t/edit-a-user-setting-for-all-discourse-users/25162)
---
### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/39 "2015-03-10T14:30:44Z")
My Discourse is hosted :-\ so I can’t try your tips. Thank you anyway
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2015, 3:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980/40 "2015-03-29T03:37:06Z")
So, two customers, me and @alefattorini are hoping to get confirmation that this is underway.
I was talking to another potential hosting customer today, but they too need to set the default for end users, cannot consider buying without this feature being built in.
[Previous page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-email-settings-for-a-new-user/14980.md?page=3)