Discourse using email
You can do most things by email, provided your email address is in the system. For mail to get through, it must be sent from the address listed in your ModTools (MT) account. You'll still need the browser or app for one or two things, such as voting in polls.
Receiving mail
- The suggested way to get mail is by "watching", "tracking" or "watching first post" on the groups you're interested in. In some cases, you won't be mailed if you've already seen a post online.
- To receive email for all unmuted groups, enable "Mailing list mode" in Preferences -> Email.
- Alternatively, enable "Activity Summary" in Preferences -> Email for a digest. Choose a period of 30 minutes, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or six-monthly. It covers "popular topics and replies" and won't include muted groups - mute "Development" if you don't want to see that discussion, for example.
- You'll normally also get a mail when someone mentions you in a post (set in Preferences -> Email).
Mails follow a common pattern, so you can set up filters if you wish - Tech emails, for example, look like this:
[Freegle] [Tech & ModTools] This is the subject line of a message
Activity Summary mails simply have this subject line:
[Freegle] Summary
Sending mail
As above, any mail you send must come from your MT account's email address, or it will be rejected with a bounce reply.
To start a new topic, use the correct email address for that group - addresses are listed at https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/categories. For example, to post to Tech, email discoursereplies+Tech@ilovefreegle.org. Mail without a recognised group is rejected with a bounce reply. You can attach photos to your emails.
To reply to a topic, simply reply to the notification mail - the "Reply To" address makes sure it reaches the right place. It should appear on the forum within a few minutes. Replying to Activity Summary mails won't work.
