can I set personal email preferences?

[Nic Brough [Adaptavist]]

Yes, in your profile - choose text or html emails, and you can choose whether to get emails when you make changes yourself (most people turn this off - "I just made that change, why are you emailing me to tell me that?")

You can also subscribe to filters - get a "currently matching this filter" list on a regular basis.

And you can watch issues, assuming the notification scheme is set up for watching.