Following tasks

Follow a task to hear when someone else works on it. Whoever follows it gets a notification in their Inbox when someone else:

comments on it,
changes its status, its assignee or its due date,
or finishes it.

You're never told about your own changes.

#One notification, not dozens

What one person does to the tasks you follow in about 10 minutes, starting from their first change, comes as one notification, as long as you haven't read it and it hasn't been emailed yet:

Several changes to one task - a status, then a due date, then a comment: "Priya updated T-0051 Avatar flicker: moved it to Done and commented".
The same change to many tasks at once - moving 50 tasks to Done, say: "Priya moved 50 tasks you follow to Done: T-0042 Fix login, T-0043 Add dark mode and 48 more". Opening it lists them all.

After those 10 minutes, or once you've read it, the next change starts a new one. If a comment it mentions is deleted, its words leave the notification too, and a notification left with nothing in it goes. When a comment is edited, the notification shows the new words.

#Following and unfollowing

On a task's page, press Follow in its header. It turns to Following, with a filled bell. Press it again to unfollow.
Follow and Unfollow are in the task's ••• menu and its right-click menu too, beside Archive, and in the right-click menu of a task in any list (for every selected task, when several are).
Press u f on a focused task, on the tasks you've selected, or in a task's tab. With several selected, u f follows them all unless you follow every one already - then it unfollows them all.

A message says what happened ("Following T-0042", "Following 4 tasks"), with Undo.

#Following without asking

You follow a task when you:

make it,
are given it (its assignee),
comment on it,
or are mentioned in its description or one of its comments.

This happens however the change is made - in the app, through the REST API, or from an AI tool. Unfollow a task and it stays unfollowed: commenting on it or being given it again doesn't follow it for you. Follow it yourself to get it back.

You can only follow tasks you can see. If a task moves somewhere you can't see (a private Space you're not in), you stop hearing about it.

#Who follows a task

The task's Followers property shows who follows it: their pictures and "You and 2 others" (or "3 people", or "No one yet"). Click it to see each one and why they follow it - Followed, Created, Assignee, Commented or Mentioned - and to follow or unfollow it yourself.

Following is your own choice, like a favorite: it isn't a change to the task, so it isn't in Activity.

#Telling at a glance

Tasks you follow have a small bell beside their title in every layout - List, Board, Timeline, Calendar and Canvas - and on their key or card in Graph.

To list them, use follower:me in the query bar, or Filter → Followed by. follower:M-0003 is the tasks someone else follows, follower:unset the ones no one follows, and -follower:me the ones you don't. See the query language.

#Without one notification for each

Someone who's already told about a change isn't told again as a follower:

Mentioned in a comment: you get the mention.
Replied to in a comment thread you're in: you get the reply.
Given the task, or having it taken off you: you get that notice.

The Following chip at the top of your Inbox shows just these notifications.

#Emails and push alerts

Like other notifications, one you haven't read can come by email, and as a push alert on the phones and computers you turned alerts on in. Tasks you follow has its own Email and Push switches in Settings → Notifications → What notifies you. A burst of changes from one person comes as one alert, updated quietly as it grows, and never quotes a comment. See Notification emails and Push alerts.