How to Unsubscribe

We have sometimes received complaints from people who have signed-up to our mailing lists (our user support list, for instance, to ask for help with something) and then no longer want to receive messages. Sometimes it's because they've found the solution to their particular problem, and sometimes it's because some of our lists have quite a heavy traffic of posts.

This page describes how you can unsubscribe yourself. Please read it thoroughly, as it will most likely help you get your problem solved. If you still have problems after reading this help, a human contact's e-mail address is linked at the bottom of the document.

If you don't want to receive messages from our mailing lists anymore, please follow the steps below to unsubscribe.

We recommend you not to simply flag messages from our mailing lists as spam just because you don't want to see them in your inbox anymore. Instead, the best solution is to properly unsubscribe from the list(s) concerned. That way, you will really put a permanent end to the unwanted mail.

Check what kind of subscription you originally opted for

When you subscribe to our mailing lists, there are two ways of receiving posts from the list. In the standard mode, you receive every post to the list individually as soon as it is sent to the list. In digest mode, you receive a single message containing multiple posts, either once per day (if the list traffic is low) or after a certain number of posts have been sent to the mailling list (if the list traffic is high).

If you receive messages with individual subjects, of which the subject lines are prefixed with a tag such as "[libreoffice-users]" (which is the list's identifier tag), then it means that you are subscribed in standard mode.
If you receive a message containing a collection of posts, with a subject line starting with words such as "Digest of users@global.libreoffice.org" (indicating that the message contains a digest of messages from our user support list, in this particular example), then it means that you're subscribed in digest mode.

Check which e-mail address you subcribed to the list

People sometimes report that they are having problems unsubscribing from a list. Sometimes, the reason is simply that they are not sending the unsubscription request from the same e-mail address that they originally used to sign-up. If you have multiple e-mail addresses and are no longer sure what address you used when you subscribed, please look at the headers of a message from the list (look for a button or link such as "Details" or "Raw Message" or "Original Message" in your e-mail program or webmail page). Your e-mail address will be listed in the "Delivered-To" entry or the "Return-Path" entry, such as illustrated below:

Delivered-To: john.doe@example.com
[...]
Return-Path: <users-bounces-1234-john.doe=example.com@global.libreoffice.org>

Notice that in the "Return-Path", your address is embedded in another address, and the "@" is replaced by "=".

After completing the above two steps, you will now know both the subscription type and the subscribed e-mail address, and you can proceed to actually unsubscribe, which is a two-step process:

First you send the unsubscription request.
Then you confirm that the request was genuinely made by yourself, and was not an abusive request sent by someone else.

This is similar to the subscription process, and is referred to as "double opt-in/out" or "confirmed opt-in/out"). The process is very similar to the one you had to use to subscribe to the list in first place.

Send the unsubscription request

If you want to unsubscribe from the users@global.libreoffice.org mailing list (our user support list), for example, send an e-mail message to users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org (if you were subscribed in standard mode) or to users+unsubscribe-digest@global.libreoffice.org (if you were subscribed in digest mode).

The message does not have to contain anything in the subject line or in the body of the message. If your e-mail program or webmail service warns you that you are about to send an empty message, you can ignore the warning and go ahead with sending the message.

However, it does not matter if you do enter text in the message subject line or body. Our mailing list software will ignore any contents and no-one will read the message. Only the destination e-mail address is used to recognize your intention to unsubscribe.

To repeat what we said above, please do make sure you send this message from the same e-mail address as was used to subscribe to the mailing list, otherwise the unsubscription action will not work.

The process is the same for all our lists, and you need to perform this step for every list you want to unsubscribe from.

Confirm the request

Shortly after sending the unsubscription request (typically just a few seconds later - check for new mail, and look in your spam folder if there doesn't seem to be any), you'll receive a message asking for confirmation of the unsubscription request. The message will resemble the example below.

Subject: Confirm unsubscribe from: users@global.libreoffice.org


Hi, this is the mlmmj program managing the mailinglist

users@global.libreoffice.org

To confirm you want the address

john.doe@example.com

removed from this list, please send a reply to

<long email-address>

Your mailer may automatically reply to this address when you hit
the reply button. [...]

You confirm your intention by replying to the message. It is a mandatory step to reply to the confirmation message, otherwise your subscription will not be terminated and you will continue to receiving traffic from the list.

After you send the confirmation message, you will receive one more message that confirms that you have indeed been unsubscribed. That should be the last message you get.

If the above instructions don't work

Check your spam folder. Sometimes the confirmation request ends up in the "spam" or "bulk mail" folder, and people don't notice this and then wonder why they are still receiving mail.

Wait some time. Some mail servers implement a technology called "greylisting" which can delay e-mails up to several hours in the worst case. If you haven't received any message asking for confirmation after about four hours, and you checked your spam/junk folder, then something indeed went wrong.

If all your attempts to unsubscribe just don't work, then - as a last resort - please send a message to postmaster@documentfoundation.org and include the following information:

The lists you want to be unsubscribed from,
the address you're subscribed with,
and detailed information about the problems you encountered.

Do only write to the above address. Do not write to individual members of the admin team, do not take them into copy.

Please include/forward the replies you received from the mailing list system, if you received any. Do not simply ask for unsubscription from "all lists". This will not work. We host about 100 mailing lists, plus some lists from external parties are erroneously credited as ours, so without knowledge which lists you are referring to, we can only be of limited help. If in doubt, feel free to forward a copy of the unwanted e-mails to us, so we can investigate.

Thank you for your cooperation, and sorry for any inconveniences.