Managing bugs through email

Important

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If you prefer, you can entirely manage bugs using email.

Using the email interface you can:

  • file a new bug

  • comment on an existing bug

  • assign a bug to someone

  • change the status of a bug

  • record that a bug affects a different community.

Get email notification of new bugs in a project or package

You can ask Launchpad to email you every time someone reports a bug against a project or package that interests you, by registering as a bug contact for that project or package.

By replying to the new bug notification email, you can assign the bug to a Launchpad user or change its status, or just comment on the bug. For the details of how to use the email interface, please read our guide to UsingMaloneEmail.

Subscribe to specific bugs

If you are particularly interested in a specific bug, you can subscribe to it. Launchpad will email you every time someone comments on the bug or changes its status. If you reply to any of these emails, your comments will be sent to all of the other bug subscribers, and presented on the web site too. This is the best way to keep up to date with the progress of a bug.

Of course email notifications also work with remote bug watches. When you create a bug watch linking the Launchpad bug to a report in another community’s bug tracker, Launchpad will notify all subscribers when there is a change to the remote bug’s status. This is an excellent way to keep track of the big picture of community work on a bug.

Use teams to track bugs

Sometimes, a group of people may want to receive email notifications for a set of packages, or projects. With Launchpad, you can create a team and either subscribe that team to the bug or make the team a bug contact.

Launchpad will email everyone in that team every time a new bug is filed against the project or package.

You can find out more about Launchpad teams in the next step on our tour, Understanding Launchpad teams.