Configuring email notifications

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

Note: For all of the following procedures, you must be logged in as a user with the JIRA Administrators global permission.

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Email notifications


Enabling email notifications

It is possible to customize your email content. The email address from which notifications are sent can also be configured for each project. See Configuring an SMTP mail server to send notifications and Creating a notification scheme for more information.

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 a project's email address, which is the email address that notifications are sent from – i.e. the 'sender address'. 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 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 From address specified in the SMTP Mail Server configuration is used as the default Sender Address for all projects.

The 'Sender Address' for a project can be configured as follows:

  1. Choose > Projects, and select the relevant project. The 'Project Summary' page (see Defining a project) for your selected project is shown.
  2. At the lower-right section of the 'Project Summary' page, locate the Notifications section and click the 'pen' icon to the right of the Email address.
  3. In the resulting Project Email Address dialog box, enter a valid email address in the Sender Address field, and click Update to complete the process. This email address will now be used as the 'sender' address in all email notifications sent by this project.
    Note: You can reinstate the default email address (as specified in the SMTP Mail Server configuration) by re-editing the Sender Address field (in the Project Email Address dialog box) but leaving it blank.

(info) You cannot specify a project's email address until an SMTP Mail Server has been previously configured. See Configuring an SMTP mail server to send notifications for more information.

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. the 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.

JIRA's default setting is to not notify users of their own changes. This can be changed on a per user basis via their profile preferences.

Email HTML formatting

Each JIRA user can specify in their profile preferences, whether to send outgoing emails in either text or HTML format. JIRA Administrators can specify a default email format by choosing  > System > Default user preferences.

The HTML email format can accommodate internationalized words in the 'Issue Details' section. However, due to Internet Security Settings, which prevent images from being automatically downloaded, the HTML email messages 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 email clients, it is possible to do this in two different ways:

  1. Per email message:
    • Mozilla Thunderbird — by clicking on the 'Show Remote Content' button above the email.
    • 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 email.
    • 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 email.
  2. Configuring the email 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.

Troubleshooting email notifications

Using the JIRA admin helper

The JIRA admin helper can help you diagnose why a user isn't receiving email notifications when they should be, or why a user is receiving email notifications when they shouldn't be. This tool is only available to JIRA administrators.

To diagnose why a user is or is not receiving notifications for an issue:

  1. View the issue in JIRA.
  2. Click Admin > Notification Helper.
  3. Enter the username of the user.
  4. Click Submit.

Tip: You can also access the Notifications Helper via the cog menu for each issue in the issue navigator, or by selecting the cog icon  at top right of the screen, then Add-ons. Select Admin Helper > Notification Helper to open the following page.

Last modified on Nov 26, 2019

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