Can I disable autowatching mode for cards I get assigned to?
Asked by Grishin Kirill:

Dear Friends,

Thank you in advance for your time and help.

We're using trello for managing quite a big non-IT project (30 ppl). Lots of tasks and lots of people. I'm managing assignment people to different tasks (cards).

Problem #1: people get automatic "watching mode" of every card they get assigned to. They are complainng that there are too many notifications because of that with unnecessary details of cards life.

Problem #2: therefore people have hard time keeping track of when they were mentioned on a card - there are too many other distracting notifications. Getting notifications on mentions is critical. Getting other notifications is wasting time for us.

Question: can people disable autowatching mode for cards they get assigneds to? Is there other way to see in one place only mentions of you + really major events across all boards?

Thank you very much!

Kirill


Answers:
author: Marta Galofre de Alos
body: Hi Grishin,

Marta here, from Trello Support.

1. Yes, that's the expected behavior at the moment, and the only way for them to stop receiving notifications is to un-watch those cards. I'll pass your insights to the team for consideration though!

2. You're definitely making a good point there! Right now, it's not possible to customize which actions you get notifications for (i.e only mentions), but I understand how this would be useful and will also share your comments on that with the team.

At the moment, it's not possible to disable autowatching. This being said, with the new Home view, your team members should be able to see the most important cards on their Highlights section: <https://help.trello.com/article/1119-the-home-page>

Please let me know if you'd like me to share additional comments to the team and I'll be glad to pass them along.

Cheers!

comments: author: Grishin Kirill
body: Dear Marta,

Thank you for your reply! All clear then!

Yeah, if you'd pass this along to the team - it would be great.

My point is - my team members track boards every day. They anyway see if the column / name / date change / date end - it's visible from the first glance on the board. Therefore they don't need to track it - it a simple discipline of using the board to have a look at it at least 1-2 times a day.

Comments and mentions are another story - because you don't see there content from the board view. And they may need way quicker reaction than changed name/position/date. Therefore this is something people want to get notified about.

My 2 suggestions:

1. Simple one: Make it optional somewhere in profile or board menu (basic tickmark) to "get watching mode when assigned to a card" or "not to get it". Therefore the list of notifications will get way shorter and comments will be visible more easily.

2. Harder one: as you said, customize which actions you get notifications about (on profile or board level).

Cheers!

Kirill


author: Stefanie Tromp
body: Hello Marta or any colleague at Trello support,

Any update on this issue? I am experiencing the samen with my team.

Problem #1: people get automatic "watching mode" of every card they get assigned to. They are complaining that there are too many notifications because of that with unnecessary details of cards life.

I agree with the simple suggestions Kirill made:

1. Simple one: Make it optional somewhere in profile or board menu (basic tickmark) to "get watching mode when assigned to a card" or "not to get it". Therefore the list of notifications will get way shorter and comments will be visible more easily.

Please inform me. Love working with Trello and want my colleagues to like it to but for now they are complaining...

Cheers Stefanie


author: Pouya Razavi
body: I'd like to second this. It would be a lot less annoying if the auto-watching behavior was optional and opt-in.

Our team members are getting way too many notifications on cards that no longer concern them but they were unknowingly "auto-watched" into.

Thanks!


author: Tim Nguyen
body: Second this as well!


author: John Ennis
body: Agreed, please make this optional!


author: Eirik Paulsen
body: Seconded! ++Please++ make it possible to opt-out of auto-watch for added members to cards.


author: Jeff Alvarez
body: Hello! This is a big problem and drives me crazy because it unnecessarily clutters the board with little 'eye' icons!


author: Jeannie
body: I completely agree! This is irritating and annoying. There really needs to be a way to opt out of any watching.


author: George Harry Morgan
body: Please make auto-watch an option!


author: DABA Tourism Marketing
body: This is a big issue for us as well! Working with larger teams and lots of comments coming to the cards makes the auto-watch feature unbearable.


author: Josh
body: Throwing in my vote.

**\[\[{{\<\<\<\<Visual \&\&\& clutter \*\* is \*\* !!! \^\^\^\^ painful.$$$% \>\>\>\>}}\]\]**

It's becoming enough of a consistent problem that folks are ready to ditch Trello completely.


author: Baruti Bediako
body: Add my vote to this request.


author: Daniel Tan
body: same here!


author: Daniel Tan
body: is there watch, watching or watch, watching, unwatch? if you look around other posts there seems to be difference


author: Laura Manescu
body: I cannot stress enough how annoying is the fact that you cannot just simply disable auto-watch. It is making me (and many others) go to different tools just because of this irritating missing option. People have been complaining on forums since 2018 - why hasn't this been implemented 5 years later? Do you really not care about user experience and the constant complaints from users about this particular subject? Please implement an auto-watch enabler / disabler! Otherwise I will convince every person I know to not use Trello, because Trello ignores its users.


author: Eirik Paulsen
body: I found a fix for this using Butler/Automation: Set up a new rule that automatically "unsubscribes" you from a card that you are added to by anyone else or join yourself. Every user has to set up this automation for themselves for it to work, since there is no way (that I know) to implement one automation doing this for all users.

Trigger: When I am added to a card. (Category: "Card changes")  
Automation: Unsubscribe from the card. (Category: "Members")

![screenshot.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/252418iD1F648B7B32C0038/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "screenshot.png")


author: Laura Manescu
body: Implemented, tested - worked like a charm!

Thank you, Eirik!


author: Ollie k
body: [@Eirik Paulsen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4128488) Thank you so much \~!