Users can set their 'Watch Options' for when content is automatically watched, and then additionally, when they will get emails when someone replies to a thread, etc.
Click on your name at the top right hand corner of the screen, then click on 'Preferences', and then look through the settings, particularly in the 'Watch options' settings.
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Now a user here inquired about not getting email notifications if they haven't visited the site in a while. Upon research, it turns on that if you receive a notification that a thread has received a new post, but you don't click to visit the thread, that you won't get any more notifications about that specific thread unless and until you view the thread again. That's the short answer. One of the Xenforo developers points out:
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Note: We currently stop sending alerts to any user that hasn't been active in at least 180 days.
The quotes from the Xenforo developer came from a thread on their site: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/content-email-notifications.188910/
Click on your name at the top right hand corner of the screen, then click on 'Preferences', and then look through the settings, particularly in the 'Watch options' settings.
--
Now a user here inquired about not getting email notifications if they haven't visited the site in a while. Upon research, it turns on that if you receive a notification that a thread has received a new post, but you don't click to visit the thread, that you won't get any more notifications about that specific thread unless and until you view the thread again. That's the short answer. One of the Xenforo developers points out:
You will only get one notification for a thread until you've read it again. You don't have to have posted/interacted with it, but you would need to visit the thread and see whatever the last post in it is. Essentially, if the thread was unread when a new reply is made, you won't get another notification.
(There is one specific case where if there hasn't been a post for the <read marking date limit option value> length of time, then we would send a notification again, as we simply don't have any read marking data to know when you last read it. That would be 1 month by default though and could be set higher.)
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Making a post is only relevant in terms of the user automatically watching the thread. In terms of receiving a notification for a thread they're watching, it is based entirely on when the last viewed the thread (specifically, the end of). The rule really does boil down to:
Was the thread considered read before the most recent post was made? (That is, it'd show up as non-bold in thread lists for the user.) If so, then they would receive a notification; if not, they won't.
This generally means that a user will only receive one notification until they read the watched thread again.
Given that you're asking about long term timeframes, you might be interested in the "Only send watched content alerts/emails to users active in last" option, which will stop sending watch emails if the user doesn't visit your forum (which can help performance, but also reduce the chance of a user potentially marking these emails as spam).
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My last post really lays out the main rules that control how notifications are sent. The overarching rule is that they will only receive one notification until they read the thread.
If they get a watch notification and then don't go into the thread on the site (regardless of whether they've read the email for example) and someone else replies a week later, they won't get another notification. Conversely, if they got a notification, immediately read the thread and then someone replied 2 minutes later, they would get another notification. It's entirely about them reading the thread to "reset" the notification.
The option I mentioned previously (to limit to active users) wouldn't really be relevant to users that are actively viewing the site (unless there was something not working correctly on your site, though this seems very unlikely).
Note: We currently stop sending alerts to any user that hasn't been active in at least 180 days.
The quotes from the Xenforo developer came from a thread on their site: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/content-email-notifications.188910/
