Can I add someone to the email notification list after a message has been posted?

You can still add someone to the email notification list for a message after it is posted. Just click on the red “Edit” link associated with the message.

Go to the “Notify people of this message via email” section of the page and check off the name of the person you want to add. Then click the “Save changes” button.

An email notification will be sent to the person (or people) and they’ll be on the list to get email notifications when new comments are posted.

How can we format (bold, bullets, italics, etc) our messages or comments?

Basecamp uses Textile formatting so you can use simple, easy-to-write codes to format text. Type the codes in your text and you will see the results after clicking Save.

Some examples:
*bold* → bold
_italic_ → italic

Check this Textile Quick Reference guide to see how to easily make lists, headers, and more.

I changed the global categories, but they didn’t change inside my project. Why?

Global categories are applied to new projects, not existing projects. When you change the global categories all future projects you create will inherit those categories.

How do email notifications work?

Email notifications let people stay up to date on message threads via email. Anyone who posts a new message or comments on a message will automatically be “subscribed” to that message. When you are subscribed to the message, you’ll get an email notification each time someone else posts a new comment on that message.

It’s easy to notify people about one of your messages. When you post a message you’ll see a section that says, “Notify people of this message via email.” Select whomever you want to be notified. Selected people will receive a copy of the message via email and will also receive any comments posted to that message via email too (they can unsubscribe at any time).

Subscriptions are established on a message-by-message basis (there’s no “always notify me” option). This keeps you from being inundated with messages you aren’t interested in.

People who aren’t part of a thread can also subscribe to a message by clicking on the message and then selecting “Yes, email me” in the right sidebar.

What is a “private” message? What does it mean to make something “private”?

Private messages and private to-do lists can be seen by members of your team (including contractors) but can NOT be viewed by your clients. Clients will see no reference to the messages or to-do lists — not on the messages page, not on the to-do list page, not on the overview page, not on the dashboard page, and they won’t receive any email notifications related to private items. This allows you to share sensitive or not-yet-finalized information internally without worry about clients accessing these entries.

Private items are called out with a red bar on the left, a light red textured background, and a small red “PRIVATE” item badge in the upper right corner of the item.

To make a message private, select the checkbox next to “Make this message private” when creating or editing a message.

How can I stop receiving email notifications?

If you’d prefer not to receive email notifications on new comments, you can unsubscribe from a message. First, click the red “Edit” link associated with the message.

The people subscribed to a message are listed in the right sidebar. To unsubscribe, click the “remove” link located next to “You.”

If you aren’t comfortable with the content of messages, comments, files, to-dos and milestones being sent via email (emails are inherently insecure since they are sent in plain text over the internet), you can disable the email notification feature entirely. If disabled, people won’t see the email notifications option at all. (Note: The RSS feature is a great alternative to using email for notifications.)

To turn off all email notifications, go to your Dashboard and click the “Settings” tab in the upper right. Scroll down the page to the section called “Email notification” and select “No email notifications.”

What does “associate with a milestone” mean?

When you associate a message with a milestone, a link to the message will appear below the milestone you select.

To do this, post a new message (or edit an existing one) and click the link that says “Associate this message with a milestone...”

Select the milestone you want from the pulldown menu.

If this message is part of the completion of the milestone, you can select the checkbox next to “Completes this milestone.” The milestone will then be marked as completed in the “Milestones” section.

How do I attach files to messages?

Post a new message (or edit an existing one) and click the link that says “Attach files to this message...”

You can choose a file on your computer and upload it. Each file should be under 30MB. All files for a project can be viewed by clicking the “Files” tab.

Can we email messages to Basecamp?

No, messages need to be added from your browser. You can always cut and paste copy from an email into your browser window though.

What’s the difference between green and grey icons in List view?

New messages or messages with new comments are marked green. Messages/comments you’ve already viewed are marked grey. For example, in the screenshot above: The first message, “Offsite Backups” has 8 comments, at least 1 of which is new to you. The second message, “timezoneless apps” is new to you, has a file attached, but has no comments. The third message, “Coding conventions for CSS” has 3 comments that you’ve already viewed. And so on...

Can we email messages to Basecamp?

No, messages need to be added from your browser. You can always cut and paste copy from an email into your browser window though.

Can I post HTML/PHP/JavaScript into a message?

You can surround any code that you want to be rendered literally in <pre> or <code> tags. This will prevent the code from being interpreted by the browser. Use <pre> for multiline blocks of code. Use <code> for inline code.

That said, though, if you have a lot of complex JavaScript or PHP that you want to embed, Basecamp messages might not be a good fit. Better to use a dedicated code pasting service like Pastie and link to your code pastes from your Basecamp message.

Can I reply to messages via email?

Yes, Basecamp allows you to post comments on messages via email.

You can now post comments to a message via email.

When you receive a message or comment notification by email, simply click “reply” and your comment will be posted to the project.

At the top of new message and comment notification emails you’ll see this:

Reply ABOVE THIS LINE to post a comment to the project
Anything you type above that line will be posted back to the project as a comment on the message. This is especially useful if you’re on a mobile device (Blackberry, iPhone, etc) and you want to reply without having to log into Basecamp over a slow internet connection.

Note that you can only reply to the message in plain text—HTML emails will not be posted to the project. File attachments are accepted and will be posted to the project if you attach them to your reply.

I keep getting a delivery failure when I try to send a comment via email. What’s wrong?

Most likely, your email program is not set up to use the “reply to” feature. Basecamp messages come from a masked email address that can’t accept incoming mail. When you reply to a message, make sure you are sending to the “reply to” email address so your comment will make it to Basecamp.

Usually this is an easy feature to enable under the Preferences panel of your email client.