Liam Killingback
Gitlab-CE Disable Pipeline Emails Self Hosted

If you’re running a self-hosted GitLab CE server and want to stop receiving pipeline notification emails, you can do so by modifying the source code. This method can disable emails for successful, failed, and fixed pipeline events.

After recently adding mandatory pipeline checking for merge requests, the method requires the merge request to instantly fail, blocking the request until someone else approves it. Every time a pipeline fails, succeeds or gets ‘fixed’, the whole dev team gets an email, which was super annoying.

Finding almost no helpful information online and no way to turn them off on the client, with some help from Ai, I did some digging into the source code and finally found the fix.

Steps to Disable Pipeline Emails

1. SSH into Your GitLab Server

Access your GitLab instance via SSH:

ssh your-user@your-server-ip

2. Edit the Pipeline Emailer File

Open the pipeline mailer file in a text editor:

sudo nano /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/app/mailers/emails/pipelines.rb

3. Modify the Email Functions

Locate the top three functions responsible for sending pipeline emails. I can’t remember exactly what they were called but they’re close enough you can’t miss them:

• pipeline_email("Success")
• pipeline_email("Failed")
• pipeline_email("Fixed")

Modify each function to return immediately, effectively disabling them. For example:

def pipeline_email("Failed")
  return # Disable pipeline failure emails
end

Repeat this for the success and fixed pipeline emails if needed.

4. Restart GitLab

After saving your changes (Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter), restart GitLab for the modifications to take effect:

sudo gitlab-ctl restart

Conclusion

This method prevents GitLab from sending unwanted pipeline notifications. Be aware that modifying GitLab’s source code can be overwritten by updates, so keep a record of your changes in case they need to be reapplied after an upgrade.