Manage Email Notifications in Moodle for Students

Moodle makes it easy to keep track of your course’s online discussions by using email notifications.  However, improper settings can result in too many emails.  This handout will show you how to control these notifications, and keep your inbox uncluttered.

There are two places where you need to keep track of your settings: your personal profile settings that control settings for all of your classes and individual forums you want to follow.

Edit Your Personal Settings

Every Moodle user has the ability to control how they receive email notifications from Moodle. To customize these settings:

1. To access your profile settings, go to the Settings block, click My Profile Settings then Edit profile. The Edit profile screen will open.
2. On the Profile settings screen, find the Email digest type drop-down menu to control how Moodle will send you notifications when you are following discussions. You have the following options:
   • No digest (single email per forum post)
   • Complete (daily email with full posts)
   • Subjects (daily email with subjects only)

   Note: By choosing Complete or Subjects you will receive one email per day with notifications from Moodle. If you choose No Digest, you will receive an email every time a classmate or instructor posts to discussions you are following.

3. Change the Forum auto-subscribe setting to control whether you will automatically follow discussions on your course pages. We recommend that you set this to No: don’t automatically subscribe me to forums.
4. At the bottom of the screen, click Update profile to finish making changes.

Manage the Discussions You Follow

When you are posting or replying to a topic in a forum, find the Subscription setting below the text box to select whether you will receive email notifications for that particular discussion. This setting can be found just above the Post to forum button.

• Select I don’t want email copies of posts to this forum if you do not want any email notifications about the forum.
• Select Send me email copies of posts to this forum if you would like new posts and replies sent to your email address.
  • Note: If you are subscribed to a forum it means you will receive email copies of forum posts. Usually you can choose whether you are subscribed, though sometimes a subscription is forced so that everyone receives email copies of forum posts.  For example, this is the case for the Announcements/News Forum on your course, which sends emails by default.  Other forums may be set to force or prevent subscriptions based on what your instructor/facilitator has selected.

Tip: If you find yourself receiving email you don't want, follow the link at the bottom of any email to unsubscibe from that forum (if optional).