# Group notification settings

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-notification-settings/126948>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [August 27, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-notification-settings/126948 "2019-08-27T16:15:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![tobiaseigen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tobiaseigen/32/539204_2.png) [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-notification-settings/126948/2 "2019-08-27T16:28:57Z")

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For messages: You can set the default notification level for groups to `watching`. But you can’t prevent people from changing that later after they join the group.

For topics it is already set to `normal` by default, which means that when you @ mention groups they will be notified.

But maybe you are talking about category settings. You can set this for new users in `/admin/site_settings/category/user_preferences`.

There is a plugin for enforcing this for users later to prevent them from unwatching a category.

> [@Make members of a group watch a category by default](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-members-of-a-group-watch-a-category-by-default/22127/31):
>
> I just noticed this discourse plugin: [https://github.com/discourse/discourse-watch-category-mcneel](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-watch-category-mcneel) It appears to be by @techAPJ - can you confirm this works and can you give any guidance on configuration? If so it solves my problems!

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