How do I reduce the number of email notifications from JIRA?

[Dan Wallek]

I've tried to customize my email settings for my profile, but the settings to customize are very limiting.

[Michael Partyka]

The best will be if you will notify watchers only. In notification scheme remove all  users, groups and roles and add only Project Role (Watchers)

Who will be interested in the ticket will be added to watchers and Voilla!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not always a good move - you really do need to think it through. 

I don't want to have to add watchers every time I create issues.  Worse, I may not even have the right to do it.  For example, what happens when a call for help comes in from an external user and it's automatically assigned to me because I'm the component lead?  I want the assignee notification. 

You may work through it and decide that watchers only will work for you.  But watchers only fails for most users and you really need to think through each notification, not just bin them all.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Have a review of the notification schemes set up for your system - the default is usually "notify reporter, assignee and watcher of all changes", but it's well worth reducing that to be a bit less noisy.  (Especially the "issue updated", as that can happen for every minor change)