Article version: Enterprise Server 2.15

This version of GitHub Enterprise will be discontinued on This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2019-10-16. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

About email notifications

When you enable email notifications, you will receive participating and watching notifications in your email client, and you can filter them using the email header information.

For more information about the differences between participating and watching notifications, see "About notifications."

After enabling email notifications, GitHub Enterprise will send notifications to you as multipart emails that contain both HTML and plain text copies of the content. Email notification content includes any Markdown, @mentions, emojis, hash-links, and more, that appear in the original content on GitHub Enterprise. If you only want to see the text in the email, you can configure your email client to display the plain text copy only. For more information about enabling email notifications, see "Choosing the delivery method for your notifications."

You'll only receive email notifications if outbound email support is enabled on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. For more information, contact your site administrator.

Tip: If you receive both web and email notifications, you can automatically sync the read or unread status of the notification so that web notifications are automatically marked as read once you've read the corresponding email notification. To enable this sync, your email client must be able to view images from 'the no-reply email address configured by your site administrator'.

Filtering email notifications

Each email notification that GitHub Enterprise sends contains header information. The header information in every email is consistent, so you can use it in your email client to filter or forward all GitHub Enterprise notifications, or certain types of GitHub Enterprise notifications.

Email notifications from GitHub Enterprise contain the following header information:

Header Information
From address This address will always be 'the no-reply email address configured by your site administrator'.
To field This field connects directly to the thread. If you reply to the email, you'll add a new comment to the conversation.
Cc address GitHub Enterprise will Cc you if you're subscribed to a conversation. The second Cc email address matches the notification reason. The suffix for these notification reasons is based on the no-reply email address configured by your site administrator. The possible notification reasons are:
  • assign: You were assigned to an issue or pull request.
  • author: You created an issue or pull request.
  • comment: You commented on an issue or pull request.
  • manual: There was an update to an issue or pull request you manually subscribed to.
  • mention: You were mentioned on an issue or pull request.
  • push: Someone committed to a pull request you're subscribed to.
  • review_requested: You or a team you're a member of was requested to review a pull request.
  • security_alert: GitHub detected a vulnerability in a repository you receive security alerts for.
  • state_change: An issue or pull request you're subscribed to was either closed or opened.
  • subscribed: There was an update in a repository you're watching.
  • team_mention: A team you belong to was mentioned on an issue or pull request.
  • your_activity: You opened, commented on, or closed an issue or pull request.
mailing list field This field identifies the name of the repository and its owner. The format of this address is always <repository name>.<repository owner>.[hostname].

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