# Engaging users with email notifications of posts

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/engaging-users-with-email-notifications-of-posts/80753>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [February 16, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/engaging-users-with-email-notifications-of-posts/80753 "2018-02-16T15:15:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Philip\_Colmer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/philip_colmer/32/120245_2.png) [@Philip\_Colmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Philip_Colmer)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/engaging-users-with-email-notifications-of-posts/80753/1 "2018-02-16T15:15:07Z")

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We’re looking at using Discourse to increase communications between staff of a non-announcement nature, i.e. discussions :).

Given the attitudes of our staff, it is likely that the primary mechanism for interacting with Discourse will be via email. In testing, one of the challenges I’m trying to fix is how to get Discourse to send email notifications of new posts when they occur; note that Summary emails are working but this isn’t what the staff are used to.

I’ve set “default categories watching” to the category we’re using for testing but that doesn’t seem to have triggered an email to the test users when I posted to that category.

So:

- Does that setting only apply to accounts that get created after the setting is configured?
- If it automatically applies to all accounts, any suggestions when there wasn’t an email sent?
- Is there a better/more appropriate way of achieving what I want? I thought that maybe “default categories watching first post” might also be relevant, but that would seem to only apply to replies to a post (since you are watching after a topic has been created)?

I know that users can turn on “mailing list mode” but I’m not sure (yet) if that is the right way to approach this - I’m trying to strike the right balance on the level of email people are going to receive.

Thanks for any suggestions.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/engaging-users-with-email-notifications-of-posts/80753)._