Through API Control Member's Watched Status

Ted Mead July 21, 2021

When using the API to add a member I can't figure out how to not have the member watch the card.  I tried "subscribed":"false" in the JSON or similarly using the URL address.  The members are added by all have the watched box checked.

When I get a card with "all" the fields there is no difference in the JSON if a member is watching or not, and getting all the cards the member is attached to didn't show any differences.

The user updating the card is a board admin.

The API docs have no references to "Watch".

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Iain Dooley
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July 21, 2021

@Ted Mead you can only unsubscribe a user via the API using their own API token, you can't unsubscribe on their behalf. Each member can add a Butler command to unwatch any card they're added to. I also have a product that does this and centralises cards they're added to or comments mentioned so that they get fewer notifications:

http://www.benkoboard.com/

You can also use it as a Gmail client.

Ted Mead July 21, 2021

@Iain Dooley,

Thanks for the response.  I've worked extensively with the Trello API and this is the first time I've run into something I'd expect to be able to do and can't.

While I can understand the reason for not allowing a third-party to unsubscribe an existing member from a card, it seems like a strange limitation to not allow the API user to add someone to a card without setting the subscribe state.  It seems reasonable and the API does specifically have that option and it doesn't work even if the API member is the one adding the card.  I view that as a bug.

While your product doesn't fit our needs, I do wish you the best with it.

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