How quickly after posting are notifications sent? I just posted publicly something that was meant to be a whisper (no clue how I managed that) & then immediately deleted the post. Did the user get an email with my not-for-public-consumption reply?
There generally is a (configurable) delay between a mention being made ane the notification being sent to prevent this kind of situation. Whether a notification was sent or not will depend upon the configured delay and the fact that the user was online or not.
Edit: the setting is called email time window mins
Ahem… I meant to say, “email time”, as in /admin/site_settings/category/all_results?filter=email time, will show you a couple of settings, the one @itsbhanusharma mentioned and another one for personal messages.
email time window mins
personal email time window seconds
Note: they are named “mins” and “seconds”.
You were off by 5 minutes (50%) which is due to the fact that email processing and delivery takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes these days. In some exceptional cases it could be hours before an email arrives.