How to disable email notification by default on Confluence 6.8+

[Diego Figueroa]

Hello,

We would like to add a mail server to our Confluence instance but in the past people have complained about the amount of spam they receive when changes are occurring on any space.

Is there a way to make the notification system opt-in by default or to at least turn off all e-mail through code or a setting unless the user specifically asks for email notifications?

Thanks!

[AnnWorley]

Hi! We don't have a setting or code to set the default email settings in the user profiles.

However, Confluence is not as spammy as it used to be, partly due to batching multiple edit notifications in one email. The defaults in Confluence 6.9 don't sign you up for much:

For more details on how each setting works, please see Email Notifications

To weigh in on a suggestion ticket that resembles your use case, please vote or comment on As an administrator, I want to be able to set default values for user Email settings

[Diego Figueroa]

Thank you Ann for your insightful post. I will check the options you provided.

[AnnWorley]

I appreciate the kind words and welcome any follow-up questions. :)

[Diego Figueroa]

Actually I was wondering if there is way that I can go check all these email options off for all users directly in the database or if you know if there is a way to do the same with a macro?

[AnnWorley]

I am not sure but I suspect that the settings are stored in the database as part of each user's profile. You would need to edit the Java code of Confluence to change the default settings. My point is you could possibly run a query to change everyone's settings but new users would get the default settings.

I would not expect a user macro to work as most user macros are content related and not related to the user settings. There may be a way to do it with an API tool like Confluence Command Line Interface (CLI) or ScriptRunner for Confluence but I did not find it. 

[Diego Figueroa]

Thank you again for your help Ann, I will probably explore the Java code.

Cheers!

[AnnWorley]

In that case, I should let you know there are a lot of Java developers on the Atlassian Developer community. They mostly work with writing plugins which may be an option for your use case.

Cheers,

Ann

[AnnWorley]

@Diego Figueroa we found this knowledge base article you may be interested in, as well: How to Audit Personal User Email Settings Using the Database

[Diego Figueroa]

Thank you again Ann, appreciate the extra help :)