GitLab Notification Emails
GitLab has a notification system in place to notify a user of events that are important for the workflow.
Notification settings
You can find notification settings under the user profile.
Notification settings are divided into three groups:
- Global Settings
- Group Settings
- Project Settings
Each of these settings have levels of notification:
- Disabled - turns off notifications
- Participating - receive notifications from related resources
- Watch - receive notifications from projects or groups user is a member of
- Global - notifications as set at the global settings
- Custom - user will receive notifications when mentioned, is participant and custom selected events.
Global Settings
Global Settings are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Any setting set here will be overridden by a setting at the group or a project level.
Group or Project settings can use global notification setting which will then use
anything that is set at Global Settings.
Group Settings
Group Settings are taking precedence over Global Settings but are on a level below Project Settings. This means that you can set a different level of notifications per group while still being able to have a finer level setting per project. Organization like this is suitable for users that belong to different groups but don't have the same need for being notified for every group they are member of. These settings can be configured on group page under the name of the group. It will be the dropdown with the bell icon. They can also be configured on the user profile notifications dropdown.
Project Settings
Project Settings are at the top level and any setting placed at this level will take precedence of any other setting. This is suitable for users that have different needs for notifications per project basis. These settings can be configured on project page under the name of the project. It will be the dropdown with the bell icon. They can also be configured on the user profile notifications dropdown.
Notification events
Below is the table of events users can be notified of:
| Event | Sent to | Settings level |
|---|---|---|
| New SSH key added | User | Security email, always sent. |
| New email added | User | Security email, always sent. |
| New user created | User | Sent on user creation, except for omniauth (LDAP) |
| User added to project | User | Sent when user is added to project |
| Project access level changed | User | Sent when user project access level is changed |
| User added to group | User | Sent when user is added to group |
| Group access level changed | User | Sent when user group access level is changed |
| Project moved | Project members [1] | [1] not disabled |
Issue / Merge Request events
In all of the below cases, the notification will be sent to:
-
Participants:
- the author and assignee of the issue/merge request
- authors of comments on the issue/merge request
- anyone mentioned by
@usernamein the issue/merge request title or description - anyone mentioned by
@usernamein any of the comments on the issue/merge request
...with notification level "Participating" or higher
Watchers: users with notification level "Watch"
Subscribers: anyone who manually subscribed to the issue/merge request
Custom: Users with notification level "custom" who turned on notifications for any of the events present in the table below
| Event | Sent to |
|---|---|
| New issue | |
| Close issue | |
| Reassign issue | The above, plus the old assignee |
| Reopen issue | |
| New merge request | |
| Reassign merge request | The above, plus the old assignee |
| Close merge request | |
| Reopen merge request | |
| Merge merge request | |
| New comment | The above, plus anyone mentioned by @username in the comment, with notification level "Mention" or higher |
| Failed pipeline | The author of the pipeline |
| Successful pipeline | The author of the pipeline, if they have the custom notification setting for successful pipelines set |
In addition, if the title or description of an Issue or Merge Request is
changed, notifications will be sent to any new mentions by @username as
if they had been mentioned in the original text.
You won't receive notifications for Issues, Merge Requests or Milestones created by yourself. You will only receive automatic notifications when somebody else comments or adds changes to the ones that you've created or mentions you.