Email blast, then opt-in to follow thread?

March 26, 2015 5:28 PM

I'm on a couple of email lists, and what happens is someone will email everyone, then someone else will reply to everyone, and so on... Sometimes it's something I'm interested in, sometimes it isn't. Is there a way to have an initial email go to everyone, then those who are interested can continue the conversation among themselves and those who are not can just ignore it and never see any follow-ups?
posted by mpark to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

The email list services that I know have an option that the moderator can set so that a "reply" to an email either goes to the individual posting or goes to everyone on the list. This is a global setting. I don't know of anyway for a subgroup to take a conversation off-line after it has started.
posted by metahawk at 6:18 PM on March 26, 2015

Do you use Gmail? Gmail has the ability to "mute" a conversation and have any following emails in the conversation skip the inbox (when you're in the conversation, click the "more" dropdown and then select "mute"). It's just a solution on one side, and only for people who have Gmail, but it may help.
posted by brainmouse at 6:34 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Outlook has an "ignore" function that does the same thing as Gmail's mute, fyi.
posted by capricorn at 6:37 PM on March 26, 2015

+1 to "this is the responsibility of the recipient who wishes to opt out." Mute or Ignore.
posted by amaire at 10:09 PM on March 26, 2015

Best answer: Groups.io has an option that sends you just the first message in every thread and you opt in to following the thread.
posted by dttocs at 7:33 AM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Never heard of groups.io -- thanks, dttocs.
posted by mpark at 12:13 PM on March 27, 2015