Receive an email for only new topics?

Support
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Is there a way to receive an email for every new topic created on the forum?

I know that there is the one setting in account preferences to receive an email for every topic and post, but it seems like I might be missing something.

We have a lot of users that are wanting emails for only new topics as opposed to every single post. If the question isn’t relevant to them, they don’t want to receive multiple emails for every person who posts on that topic. On the other hand, if it does relate to them or they can help, the email for the topic creation is enough for them to jump in on the conversation. From there they can check back or receive an email for @ replies.

I know that you can track categories as well, but you can’t make the tracking email you, correct?

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You can watch a category, but you’d be getting an email for every reply and every new topic in the category.

This has come up enough that it might make sense for us to add a “topics only” watch, but I am not clear how this can be done in the existing UI.

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Oh - so watching the category does send out emails? That is still a better option that checking to receive emails for all new topics and posts and then muting categories. :slight_smile:

You could add a column for levels of each type with checkboxes for notification and/or email? That way a user could select what action they want to take on the category and set preferences right there?

There could also just be an additional setting in the account preferences to receive an email for every topic. (Underneath the one to receive an email for every new topic and post.)

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I am not really a fan of kitchen sink UI, this is kind of an obscure option that most people don’t need.

But! Since this is limited to category I wonder if a New Topics entry in the category notifications list would work. Conceptually you pretend that every new topic mentioned you by @name and follow the same code path. Then you are only notified of new topics and the notification state for individual topics is still “tracking”.

Hmm, maybe a single check box makes sense, at the bottom.

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How this will integrate into the User Preferences page? Will this simply be another field between watched, tracked, and muted categories?

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this is kind of an obscure option that most people don’t need.

While we’re at it, changing the (!) icon to a text label “follow” would help a lot making the entire feature more discoverable. I don’t think any of my users use it if not instructed to.

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That would be amazing !

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You can edit the copy on your site to whatever words you want, using Admin, Customize.

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We did add a “watch first post” option at the category level to cover this scenario.

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