HOW TO: Turn off your EMAIL ALERTS and still stay up-to-date on Gather

If you are receiving EMAIL ALERTS in your off-Gather email account you have the option to turn them off. PLEASE READ BELOW.

The Support Team often receives questions from members asking how to adjust or turn off email alerts sent to their off-Gather email account. Certain events on Gather can trigger an email to your off-Gather email account, if you want them to. You have the option to turn email alerts ON or OFF, depending on your preference. First, I will address email alerts that are triggered by “Group mail”, followed by email alerts triggered by other Gather events. And I’ll show you how to know what’s going on by using your homepage, rather than email.

I want to clarify a few things that may be confusing. "Group mail," "broadcast messages," etc are really just regular private messages - the same kind that you would send to one of your friends on Gather. When you receive a "group message," you are really receiving a private message from an individual member within a group that you belong to. You read these messages in the same Gather Inbox that you read non-group messages. If a message is sent via a group, that group's name will be found in [brackets] in the message subject.

If you use the "Block Sender" button on one of these messages, you will block future mail from the individual member who sent you that message - not all mail sent via that group.

The email notifications setting is the same for being alerted to a new "group" private message, as an "individual" private message not sent via a group.

Some groups on Gather are set up with the purpose of sending private messages to all group members whenever a member shares new content; examples of this are the Gather Broadcast group and the View Masters group.

There are 2 ways you can prevent private messages from ANY group to cause an email alert to be sent to your email account outside of Gather.

1) To control whether or not you are alerted by email when you receive any type of private message, go to your ‘email preferences’ located within your Account Settings and under the ‘My Content’ section at the top of the page uncheck the box next to "...when I receive a private message." The group-related email settings at the bottom of this page DO NOT pertain to the private messages you receive through a group like Gather Broadcasting.

2) You can remove yourself from the group.

Other events on Gather can trigger email alerts to your off-Gather email account, and you can select just which events you want to receive an email about and which you do not want to receive an email about. Go to your ‘email preferences’ located within your Account Settings and under the My Content section at the top of the page you have the option to uncheck the boxes next to ‘someone comments on my content,’ ‘new comments on my content need approval,’ or ‘someone pings me or new pings need approval.’

Under the My Friends section you can uncheck the box next to ‘email me when I receive a Friend Request’. Scroll through your friends and check only those items you want to be emailed about.

The My Groups section lets you determine if you would like to be alerted by email when you receive an invitation to join a group, when new content or members in one of the groups you own needs moderation, and you can scroll through your list of groups and chose to be alerted if new content or members join a group you belong to.

Want to know how to stay up-to-date without relying on email alerts? Use your ‘my home’ page. The Content for Me section is made up of 3 tabs. The first tab shows you what content your friends are sharing, the second tab shows new content in your groups and the third tab you can enter whatever interests you want to see content about – such as the holidays, politics, or kids crafts. Using the Content for Me section shows you what is happening regarding content on Gather without the need to have email alerts. Over on the right of your ‘my home’ page you can see the social updates of your friends.

If you have questions about adjusting your email preferences please feel free to contact the Support Team. We are here to help you have the kind of experience on Gather you are looking for.