@Rich Evans ~ Question... how would you write this out, step by step?

"If the user sends 100 PMs back to back.. I still only get the one email saying I have "unread messages" from that user."

I am asking, because from a programmer's point of view - how would the system know that your friend pm'ing you has stopped / is done, so that the system can send out just 1 email?

If you can logically write it out step by step, it can be programmed. If you cannot, then you will have to change what you want. I mean, it is your idea after all...

Personally, I think that you would check in at least a couple times a day, as it is your social media site. Most digest emails are a soft reminder that "hey, the site exists, why not go look?" And it doesn't break your site's ability to send emails by spamming users. Remember - all it takes is a few users reporting your site's email as spam, for it to come under scrutiny...

-M.

Not really.
If I were a community member and knew you wouldn't respond until you received an email anyway, why should I send you a community message an advance? I would of course email you right away then. :)

"offline" meaning "not logged in to the OSSN site"

Sorry. I mean, the system can send and email when I am offline and/or not logged into the OSSN site.. and of course email services receive emails while I'm offline. Does that make more sense.

I get a single email any time I am offline...

Sorry, but how would you read that mail when you're offline?

I agree that getting an email for every PM is excessive, and I like the idea of a digest, but a whole day seems too long. Since we're brainstorming here about how it could work, how about this:

I get a single email any time I am offline and I receive a messages from a user. If a user PMs me while I'm online, no email.. If I'm offline I get a get an email alerting me to that "one or more" messages are there for me.. If the user sends 100 PMs back to back.. I still only get the one email saying I have "unread messages" from that user. If I visit the site and read the messages (clearing the unread messages notification) then I am set to receive another email if I receive another message once I am no longer online.

That seems super reasonable .. in fact, please consider this topic as an example.. I get an email every time someone relies to it.. that is actually the only reason I check it, is when I get the email alert.. so it is with PMs.. no?

Continued thanks!
/Rich

Arsalan is correct. On my first website, I put in a "recommend to people" the product that was on the particular page. made it a mail form. Some bot found it, sent out 5k emails (all spam) using my mail server and got my website blacklisted for ~15 years. (It's probably still blacklisted even though I took down the site in 2005.) I made that site in 1998 or 1999.

Here's a thought - what about a "Daily Digest" email instead?
Kind of like an activity report for the user, sent to them each day (if subscribed) that tells them they have receives X number of messages, comments, likes, etc.

Just a thought.

Sending email when there is a new message lets suppose User A sends a 50 messages to User B and User B sends 50 messages to User A as a reply , then sending 100 emails will make your service ban by email provider. Your website will be listed in spam for sending too many emails to any email address.

Am I understanding this correctly? Are you saying that, at present, there is no way to configure OSSN or components to add (free or premium) that enables it to send emails to the user to let them know when they receive a PM?

Okay,
the OssnNotifcations component does pure onscreen notifying only - it does not send any mails.
It's watching out for several community actions - like someone commented on a post of yours - and pops up a window to let you know who it was.

the Notifications via email component additionally would send an email to you in case the action is a one of the supported actions that are listed on the components page. If your action (e.g, sending a PM) is not listed no mail will be sent.

Ok, now I'm feeling foolish.. It's not clear to me what components are responsible for what specific notifications capabilities, and so to that end I may not be explaining things well, but I can say this; on the server, mail is working well. Both postfix and phpmail are fine. It's got to be something about OSSN that is not sending emails to users alerting them to the existence of private messages in OSSN. So let's just start with that. Is that something that should be possible with OSSN (email alerts indicating new messages on the OSSN site)? .. If so, how to troubleshoot it? What configurations does OSSN require to send emails to users when they have a message to read in OSSN?