# Follow posts and email updates

> What portal members follow, which emails they get, and how they turn them off.

Signed-in members of a portal can follow an item, such as an idea, question or discussion, and get an email when something happens to it. It's how people hear back after they post or vote.

## How someone follows an item

- **Automatically:** a signed-in member who posts, replies or votes follows that item.
- **By hand:** **Follow** on the item's page. It then reads **Following**. Select it again to stop.

Following needs an email address, so visitors who aren't signed in are asked to sign in first. On a portal where **Who can take part** is **Anyone**, people who take part without signing in don't follow anything.

Members see everything they follow on their account page under **Following**, with **Unfollow** beside each item.

## Which emails go out

| What happens | Who gets an email |
| --- | --- |
| Your team moves the item to another stage from its **Discussion** card | The item's followers |
| Your team replies | The item's followers |
| A member or visitor replies | The item's author, if they follow it |
| An answer is accepted | The item's followers, and the person who wrote the answer |
| A News post that ships the idea goes live | The idea's followers, in one email naming every shipped idea they follow |

Nobody gets an email about their own change. Members who are waiting for approval or suspended, or who turned emails off, get none. No email goes out about an item the portal no longer shows.

Changing **Stage** in an item's form and selecting **Save changes** doesn't send email. See [Set up a community or ideas board](https://support.help.ai/portals/set-up-a-community-or-ideas-board).

## Turn emails off

- On their account page, members turn off **Email me about items I follow**. It covers stage updates, team replies, answers and shipped ideas.
- Each email has a link to stop emails about that item, and one to stop all emails from the portal. Both work without signing in.

## For your team

- The **Discussion** card on an item in **Content** shows how many followers a team reply emails, such as "3 followers get an email."
- On a News post, **Ideas this ships** shows how many followers get an email when you publish. See [Merge duplicates and announce shipped ideas](https://support.help.ai/portals/merge-duplicates-and-announce-shipped-ideas).

<Tip>
When you move an idea, do it from the **Discussion** card, even with a one-line note. Followers hear about it, and the thread shows the update.
</Tip>