# Weird behaviour for sent emails

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 27, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189 "2021-12-27T14:20:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![phntxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/phntxx/32/90816_2.png) [@phntxx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/phntxx)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/1 "2021-12-27T14:20:57Z")

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Hello!

I’ve been having this issue where Discourse sends out emails for some replies, but not for others. I have mailing list mode enabled by default, so missing replies can be crucial.

For example, when looking at the “Sent” E-Mail logs, i would see that a user has received an email for reply #27 and #29, but not for #28.

Does anyone have a similar behaviour/know why this is?

Kind regards

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### Author: ![merefield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/merefield/32/176214_2.png) [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 4:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/2 "2021-12-27T16:21:44Z")

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This is not weird behaviour, it is deliberate to avoid redundant notification spam for active users.

If you have been “seen” within 10 minutes, Discourse will assume you are currently actively using the site so will not send an email.

> <https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/1472e47aae5bfdfb6fd9abfe89beb186c751f514/spec/jobs/user_email_spec.rb#L131>

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### Author: ![phntxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/phntxx/32/90816_2.png) [@phntxx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/phntxx)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 6:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/3 "2021-12-27T18:52:41Z")

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Alright, I didn’t know that. My follow-up questions then are:

1. Is there a way to validate that this behaviour I’m reporting is because of this feature?
2. What would I need to do if I deliberately wanted to spam everyone in my community (or rather: is there a way to turn this off)?

Kind regards

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### Author: ![Jonathan5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jonathan5/32/197134_2.png) [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/4 "2021-12-27T19:16:56Z")

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> [@phntxx](#):
>
> What would I need to do if I deliberately wanted to spam everyone in my community (or rather: is there a way to turn this off)?

You can change `default email level` from “only when away” to “always”. It will ask whether you want to change it for all current users, or just from then on.

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### Author: ![Jonathan5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jonathan5/32/197134_2.png) [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/5 "2021-12-27T19:30:05Z")

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> [@phntxx](#):
>
> Is there a way to validate that this behaviour I’m reporting is because of this feature?

In Admin - Emails - Skipped emails it’ll say “User was seen recently” in the Reason column.

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### Author: ![phntxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/phntxx/32/90816_2.png) [@phntxx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/phntxx)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/6 "2021-12-27T20:19:32Z")

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I’ve just looked into my system and found that this has already been set to “always”. Furthermore, I haven’t seen anything like “User was seen recently” in “Skipped emails” (in fact, I didn’t see anything like that in the reason column).

Could something else be causing what I’ve mentioned?

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### Author: ![Jonathan5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jonathan5/32/197134_2.png) [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/7 "2021-12-27T21:24:21Z")

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This is a pure guess, but maybe a user has muted a category, topic or tag (and maybe there is no log of that reason for not emailing).

I had a similar experience but never looked into it in detail in the end:

> [@Query for users' email settings](https://meta.discourse.org/t/data-explorer-query-users-email-settings/203646):
>
> How could I find out how many users have each email setting? I’m asking as only about a tenth of users watching a topic are being emailed post notifications. Thank you.

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/8 "2021-12-27T23:07:33Z")

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> [@phntxx](#):
>
> What would I need to do if I deliberately wanted to spam everyone in my community (or rather: is there a way to turn this off)?

If you want to email 100% of the site activity you should use the “Mailing List Mode”, available in [Discourse Meta - The Official Support Forum for Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/my/preferences/emails)

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### Author: ![Jonathan5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jonathan5/32/197134_2.png) [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/9 "2021-12-27T23:22:46Z")

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That would let him receive emails for himself on mailing list mode, rather than force it for all users.

Maybe he has enabled mailing list mode but not set it for all users.

Incidentally, the first two settings below are confusing.

**default email mailing list mode**  
Send an email for every new post by default.

**default email mailing list mode frequency**  
Send an email for every new post  
Users who enable mailing list mode will receive emails this often by default.

**disable mailing list mode**  
Disallow users from enabling mailing list mode (prevents any mailing list emails from being sent.)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![phntxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/phntxx/32/90816_2.png) [@phntxx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/phntxx)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2021, 10:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/10 "2021-12-28T10:05:26Z")

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> [@Jonathan5](#):
>
> This is a pure guess, but maybe a user has muted a category, topic or tag (and maybe there is no log of that reason for not emailing).

Consider the following example:  
The user has received an email for reply #25 - #28 and #30, but not #29.

If the user had muted a category/topic/tag, they would’ve not received any replies after #28, which they did though, correct?

> [@Falco](#):
>
> If you want to email 100% of the site activity you should use the “Mailing List Mode”, available in [Discourse Meta - The Official Support Forum for Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/my/preferences/emails)

> [@Jonathan5](#):
>
> That would let him receive emails for himself on mailing list mode, rather than force it for all users.
> 
> Maybe he has enabled mailing list mode but not set it for all users.

I’ve enabled mailing list mode for everyone by default using the Setting “default email mailing list mode” that you mentioned. Further, “default email mailing list mode frequency” is set to “Send an email for every new post” and “disable mailing list mode” is disabled.

Thank you very much for your help guys 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Jonathan5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jonathan5/32/197134_2.png) [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2021, 10:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/weird-behaviour-for-sent-emails/213189/11 "2021-12-28T10:26:29Z")

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> [@phntxx](#):
>
> The user has received an email for reply #25 - #28 and #30, but not #29.

That was the sort of thing that I’d noticed on my forum too so, yes, the muting idea is unlikely to be the answer.

Maybe you could do some [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) queries to find out what users’ settings are.

Or have a look at the code linked to above. Maybe there are situations in which emails are skipped but that fact is not logged.
