# Inadvertent flood of emails / notifications when attempting to silently move Topics between categories
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993
**Category:** Bug
**Tags:** email, bulk-actions
**Created:** [10 december 2025 om 22:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993 "2025-12-10T22:51:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [10 december 2025 om 22:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/1 "2025-12-10T22:51:22Z")
Just got burned when moving 30 topics between categories by an email storm to my most valuable users.
I noticed after the last update that the text has changed for [the feature which allows the suppression of notifications when a bulk selected group of Topics have their Category changed](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bulk-editing-topic-categories-should-not-trigger-thousands-of-email-notifications/265269). It now shows this:
> 
I left that unchecked, and it emailed them like crazy! The destination category is configured as `Watching first post`, but before this change those would have been suppressed.
What is going on here?
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 10:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/2 "2025-12-11T10:51:08Z")
Sorry about that @nathank ☹
> [@nathank](#):
>
> The destination category is configured as `Watching first post`, but before this change those would have been suppressed.
I’ve tried to reproduce locally, and improved our spec coverage to ensure we handled this case…
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36626](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36626)
… but everything seems to be working as expected 🤔
Any chances you could find some reproductions steps?
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 11:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/3 "2025-12-11T11:02:16Z")
@zogstrip I don’t see test coverage for this case.
In my reading, the `describe "silent option"` specs only cover the scenarios where the topic being moved is already watched.
The case being described here is for the scenario where the _destination category_ is “watched” or “watching first post”.
@nathank, to my knowledge, we’ve never done that silently.
I think what’s going on here is that the modal for the feature we _did_ add makes it sound like that should also be silenced. I think we’ve shifted expectations with this modal and now we’re not meeting them.
That’s my hunch anyway.
I think this is a legitimate #Contribute > Feature or #Contribute > UX request, and I fully support doing it. But I don’t think it’s _technically_ a bug or a regression.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 11:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/7 "2025-12-11T11:12:23Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> @nathank, to my knowledge, we’ve never done that silently.
I had thought this was part of the purpose of including this as an option in bulk actions (to match the behaviour of `Disable category edit notifications` and `Disable tag edit notifications` on an ad hoc basis).
Without it, the feature would rather limited.
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 11:20 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/8 "2025-12-11T11:20:39Z")
Good point. I’m honestly not sure.
I do see that’s _exactly_ the use case described in the original feature request:
> [@Bulk editing topic categories should not trigger thousands of email notifications](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bulk-editing-topic-categories-should-not-trigger-thousands-of-email-notifications/265269/1):
>
> but the users who were watching the destination category were sent nearly a thousand emails each!
I also see that several folks thought the same thing when they saw the new checkbox: [Bulk editing topic categories should not trigger thousands of email notifications - #12 by mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bulk-editing-topic-categories-should-not-trigger-thousands-of-email-notifications/265269/12)
The [PR itself](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/7a099ebb6a4c4f177cd416414914d8f902558e90) also makes it sound like that was the intention:
> When the “Perform this action silently” checkbox has been checked, the `:notify_category_change sidekiq` job should not be enqueued.
But I’m not seeing explicit spec coverage for this case.
Admittedly, I’m a bit out of practice readying ruby specs since I haven’t write code day to day for the past few years, but this does feel like a possible gap.
Smells more like a bug to me now. Not sure if regression or not, but does feel like we’re missing coverage for this case.
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 11:39 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/10 "2025-12-11T11:39:29Z")
Ahah! I think I’ve found the issue 🐛
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36626/commits/97f2719231d549b7c38571bd7b8c351275e8d3fa](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36626/commits/97f2719231d549b7c38571bd7b8c351275e8d3fa)
The `@silent` option wasn’t propagating properly which caused users watching the **destination** category to receive notifications even when the “Perform this action silently” checkbox was checked.
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 17:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/11 "2025-12-11T17:26:17Z")
> [@zogstrip](#):
>
> Ahah! I think I’ve found the issue 🐛
Brilliant! And thank you for both taking this seriously and the super quick fix! I’ve just tested it and all seems good.
I just wanted to note that the text in the UI is now different / flipped - so that the ticking the checkbox does the exact opposite of what it used to do. But that side of things seems to be working fine, so hopefully all good.
It used to be:
- Perform this action silently
see [Bulk editing topic categories should not trigger thousands of email notifications - #12 by mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bulk-editing-topic-categories-should-not-trigger-thousands-of-email-notifications/265269/12)
It is now:
- Notify users of this change
see [Inadvertent flood of emails / notifications when attempting to silently move Topics between categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/1)
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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [11 december 2025 om 21:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/12 "2025-12-11T21:30:02Z")
> [@nathank](#):
>
> I just wanted to note that the text in the UI is now different / flipped - so that the ticking the checkbox does the exact opposite of what it used to do.
_☎ Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed…_
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [12 december 2025 om 07:00 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inadvertent-flood-of-emails-notifications-when-attempting-to-silently-move-topics-between-categories/390993/13 "2025-12-12T07:00:36Z")
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