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Still Receiving Workflow Notification Emails After Disabling Them

Overview

You've turned off all email notifications in your CircleCI user settings, but you're still receiving emails about workflow results. This is a known point of confusion and is usually caused by one of the scenarios below.

Why This Happens

1. Emails Are Being Sent to a Distribution List or Bot Account

The most common cause is that the workflow emails are not addressed directly to your personal account — they're going to a distribution list or shared email address that is linked to a different CircleCI user (often a bot or service account). Because that separate user still has notifications enabled, emails continue to flow.

To confirm this, check the email headers of one of the notification emails you're receiving:

  • Open the email in your mail client

  • View the full headers (in Gmail: click the three-dot menu → "Show original")

  • Look at the To: field — if it shows a different address than your personal login email, the notification is coming from a different user's settings, not yours

If the "To" address is a distribution list or service account, you'll need to either:

  • Disable notifications on that separate CircleCI user account, or

  • Remove the distribution address from the relevant users' notification settings

2. Propagation Delay

If you recently disabled notifications, it can take some time for the change to fully take effect across all systems. If you disabled notifications only a short while ago, wait a bit and see if the emails stop.

How to Check and Update Your Notification Settings

  1. Confirm that all workflow notification toggles are set to Off

  2. Save your changes if prompted

Steps to Troubleshoot

  1. Check the email headers to confirm the "To:" address matches your CircleCI notifications email.

  2. If the "To:" address is different, identify which CircleCI user that address belongs to and update that user's notification settings.

  3. If you don't have access to that account, contact your organization admin.

  4. If the "To:" address is your own email and notifications are still disabled, contact CircleCI Support with:

    • The approximate date you disabled notifications

    • A sample of the email headers from a notification you received

    • A workflow ID that can be found in the email body

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