Setting autowatch to disabled does not work??

[Adil Hussain]

I've navigated to my User Profile page and in Preferences I've set Autowatch to Disabled. However, I still get emails about changes in Stories/Tasks/etc in which I'm commenting or being assigned to. Is this the intended behaviour of Autowatch even after it's disabled?

Edit: I was a bit unclear in my question. Looks like disabling autowatch is having no effect even for issues that were created subsequent to me disabling autowatch.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Autowatch means "add me as a watcher when I comment on, or update, an issue".  It only applies at the time at which you make changes.

Turning it off means that you will not be added to any more issues you comment on or update, but it has no effect on what you did in the past (because there's no way of knowing if you clicked "watch", irrespective of your comments/updates)

If you want to stop getting these emails, you could bodge the notification scheme, but that's the wrong thing to do - what you should do is search for the issues you are currently watching and use bulk-edit to remove yourself from the watcher list.

[Adil Hussain]

Thanks for your answer here and your comments in the other answer Nic. Very helpful. So what I've taken away is that I could be getting emails about changes in an issue despite not being a watcher of that issue because of the way the notification scheme is setup in that project.

[Ignacio Pulgar]

Autowatch option, when enabled, sends you the notifications of changes that you have just done.

Disabling this option won't prevent you from being notified by changes performed by any other users.

The fact that you have worked on an issue in the past is irrelevant for this option.

If enabled, you will instantly receive a notification upon saving a change on an issue.

If you want to stop receiving notifications, you should configure each project's notification scheme according to your needs.

[Adil Hussain]

So what does disabling autowatch in my User Profile Preferences do?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Please read the middle paragraph of my answer.

[Adil Hussain]

Nic, the middle paragraph of your answer reads "The fact that you have worked on an issue in the past is irrelevant for this option." I don't see why you are referring me to this paragraph. The first two paragraphs of your answer imply that enabling or disabling autowatch toggles whether or not I'll be notified of my own changes in issues. Are you sure this is what autowatch is? I thought enabling autowatch sets me up to receive emails as soon as I comment in an issue, I'm assigned to an issue, I'm mentioned in an issue etc.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, you're reading the middle paragraph of Ignacio's answer. Please read the middle paragraph of *my* answer. After that, you then need to understand that autowatch does not toggle any emails. It makes you a watcher. What your notifications do after that are another story.

[Adil Hussain]

D'oh! Got mixed up and a bit confused there Nic. Apologies. So "autowatch" affects whether I'm marked as a "watcher" of an issue when I interact with the issue in some way or another but I can still get emails regarding an issue despite not being a watcher of it. Is that what you're saying Nic??

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

:-) Yes, that's exactly what autowatch does. Being a watcher is not the only way to get emails, but it all depends on the notification scheme. The default scheme says "All events notify the reporter, assignee and all watchers", but you can change that on an event basis, so you can have rules like "issue closed = reporter and watchers", "work logged on issue = project lead", "issue moved = assignee and watchers" and so-on.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry, hit enter too quickly! So, what you need to do is look at the notification scheme for the project. If that is too noisy, get the admins to change it. Bear in mind that most of the recipients of emails are variable but not directly controlled by you - assignee, reporter, members of groups or roles, etc. Watcher is about the only one that's totally under your control - you can always add/remove yourself as a watcher.