# Why are weekly summary emails on by default?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** activity-summary
**Created:** [April 27, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448 "2020-04-27T12:53:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gubikmic](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gubikmic)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/1 "2020-04-27T12:53:37Z")
Why are weekly summary emails sent out as the default setting?
Why, when users are never even asked?!
The assumption that just because a user signs up for a forum means they want to be kept updated weekly seems very unfounded to me.
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### Author:  [@Tyson](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tyson)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/2 "2020-04-27T16:19:11Z")
I believe you are referring to the digest emails. You can choose your default frequency under `Settings > User Preferences > Default Email Digest Frequency`:
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2020, 5:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/3 "2020-04-28T05:00:42Z")
Note that this weekly summary email is _only_ sent if the user never touches the website for an entire week, and it’s capped at 52 weeks total – if the user never returns to the website again.
On top of that, unsubscribing is as easy as literally one click, included at the footer of each of the digests.
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### Author:  [@gubikmic](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gubikmic)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2020, 9:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/4 "2020-04-29T09:38:50Z")
I still think that the assumption is unfounded that every user who signs up to some message board is continuously interested in the activity there.
In fact I think that a lot of users sign up because they have some question and then _maybe_ come back but many probably won’t (until they have another question). Certainly not weekly.
I think the default setting should be off; no weekly emails.
It’s odd to me that an open source tool used by many open source projects behaves like some startup trying to improve its “metrics”.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/5 "2020-04-29T14:48:58Z")
> [@gubikmic](#):
>
> I still think that the assumption is unfounded that every user who signs up to some message board is continuously interested in the activity there.
Every discussion community _needs_ regulars to survive, so one mail per week reminding fully absent users of the most interesting discussions – capped at 52 weeks – doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. If it is unreasonable to you, perhaps you should found your own open source discussion project and build it to your liking?
> [@gubikmic](#):
>
> I think the default setting should be off; no weekly emails.
Feel free to change that setting on your instance.
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### Author:  [@refcherry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/refcherry)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 7:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/8 "2025-05-26T07:30:11Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> On top of that, unsubscribing is as easy as literally one click, included at the footer of each of the digests.
Well, skipping ads is “as easy as one click,” but we still have adblockers today because they become a persistent annoyance. People don’t like persistent minor annoyances. Sure, one forum takes a couple clicks (NOT ONE) to unsubscribe from, but most people don’t encounter “one forum” that runs Discourse. I’ve signed up for enough of these that I recognize the format of a site and avoid signing up unless I really need to, just because I know most admins don’t care enough to (or explicitly don’t want to) change the default email settings.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Every discussion community _needs_ regulars to survive
If they need it so badly, surely they’ll notice low activity and turn on the setting? It’s just a setting, after all.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> If it is unreasonable to you, perhaps you should found your own open source discussion project and build it to your liking?
If you don’t like how Windows works, would you really tell someone to go make their own OS? No, they’re still gonna encounter Windows almost any time they use someone else’s computer or write software meant for normal people to use. Any Linux user will tell you this. Sorry, this last statement of yours just reeks of hurt feelings and trying to shut the conversation down. A user of your software points out a common annoyance, and you keep defending it as if most people only ever join a couple forums that run on Discourse.
I know this is a necro, but I’m hoping that proves my point that receiving pointless notifications for something you haven’t touched in a while and forgot about is annoying. I just received one of these from what turned out to be the 11th Discourse forum with these email settings that I signed up for last week (searched emails containing the phrase “Since your last visit,” manually checked for duplicates / false positives). You could write a more specific email filter that auto-deletes these, but why flood your users with pointless emails in the first place? Some people notice these kinds of things.
You could even just prompt the user asking for their email preferences as part of the signup process. Everyone wins?
Edit: and I’m realizing such a prompt is still “one click” like you said, but that just further emphasizes how annoying it is to receive emails without consent a week after signup. Removing the delay before the setting is changed and just asking the user is nowhere near as annoying.
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### Author:  [@refcherry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/refcherry)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2025, 2:57am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/9 "2025-05-29T02:57:42Z")
Add Krita Artists to the list today. And probably this forum too, though I wouldn’t know because I manually turned it off after posting that. 12 or 13 so far.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-are-weekly-summary-emails-on-by-default/149448/10 "2025-05-29T04:22:37Z")
I don’t want you to feel like you are yelling into the void, we are discussing the “Discourse defaults” internally and considering changes here.
Particularly making it crystal clear when people create accounts what they are in for.