Configuring Email Notifications

JIRA can send email notifications to users when significant events occur (e.g. creation of an issue; completion of an issue).

On this page:

In this chapter:

Enabling Email Notifications

To enable email notifications in JIRA,

1. Configure an SMTP Mail Server.
2. Configure a notification scheme and associate it with the appropriate projects.

It is possible to customise your email content. The email address from which notifications are sent can also be configured for each project.

Disabling Email Notifications

To disable email notifications for a project, you can remove the notification scheme from the project by editing the project and selecting 'None' as the project's notification scheme.

Alternatively, you can edit the notification scheme so that no emails are sent.

Configuring a Project's Email Address

It is possible to configure the project email address that notifications are sent from. This will also serve as the reply address for responses, which can work in conjunction with Creating Issues and Comments from Email.

By setting the 'Sender' email address for a project, all notifications will be sent from this address. This setting is specific to the project selected and will not affect the configuration of the other projects. The default address specified in the SMTP Mail Server configuration is used as the default "sender" address for all projects.

The "sender" email address can be configured as follows:

1. From the Administration view, select "Projects" to view all projects. Select the project to be configured.
2. Select "Edit Configuration" from the "Mail Configuration" entry in the project detail list.
3. Enter a valid email address in the "sender" field and click "Confirm" to complete the process. This email address will now be used as the "sender" address in all notifications for this project.
4. The default email address as specified in the SMTP Mail Server can be reinstated by clicking the "Reset" button.

Email Recipients

For each event notification, JIRA will only send the first encountered email intended for a recipient. Hence, in the case where a user is included in two or more recipient lists (e.g. Project Lead and Current Reporter) for one event notification, the user will only receive the first encountered email notification. JIRA will log the fact that this user was on multiple recipient lists.

Email HTML Formatting

Each JIRA user can specify in their Profile Preferences whether to send outgoing emails in text or HTML format; JIRA administrators can specify a defaut email format under 'User Defaults' in the Administration menu.

Since Jira 3.6.1, the HTML email format was improved to accomodate internationalised words in the 'Issue Details' section. However, due to Internet Security Settings, which prevent automatic download of images, the HTML e-mail may not be correctly formatted. For example, the summary column on the left may appear too wide. It is possible to correct the formatting by accepting to download these images. On some e-mail clients it is possible to do this in two different ways:

1. per each email;
   • Mozilla Thunderbird — by clicking on the "Show Images" button above the e-mail
   • Microsoft Outlook 2003 — by clicking on the "Click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of some pictures in this message." message above the e-mail
   • Microsoft Outlook 2000 — does not have this option, it always downloads images
   • Microsoft Outlook Express 6 — by clicking on the "Some pictures have been blocked to help prevent the sender from identifying your computer. Click here to download pictures." message above the e-mail
2. configuring the e-mail client;
   • Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 — Navigate to Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> General tab and ensure that "Allow remote images if the sender is in my:" option is checked and note which address book is selected. Then return to the e-mail sent from JIRA, right-click on the sender's e-mail address and choose "Add to address book..." option, adding this contact to the same address book as was selected in the Privacy options
   • Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook Express 6 — Navigate to Control Panel -> Internet Options. On the Security tab, add JIRA's base URL to the trusted sites