This guide explains the differences between closed, unlisted, and archived topics in Discourse, including their characteristics, visual indicators, and use cases.
Required user level: All users
Discourse offers several ways to manage topics beyond just leaving them open. You can close topics, archive them, or unlist them, depending on your goal. Each of these states serves a different purpose and has specific effects on how topics are displayed, interacted with, and found.
Topics can be in more than one state at the same time, such as closed and unlisted, or closed and archived.
Summary of topic states
| State | Replies allowed | Visible in lists | Searchable | Digest emails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Closed | No | Yes | Yes | Excluded |
| Archived | No | Yes (except /top and suggested) |
Yes | Excluded |
| Unlisted | Depends | No | No | Excluded |
Closed topics
Closing a topic is the least restrictive option. You might close a topic when a discussion has reached its natural end, or to temporarily halt replies while you review the content.
Characteristics of closed topics
- Disable replying to the topic
- Disable the “Invite” button at the bottom of the topic
- Do not bump the topic’s last activity date when closed
- Continue to allow flagging of the topic or its posts
- Continue to allow bookmarking
- Remain visible in all topic lists and search results
- Allow likes and voting on polls
- Exclude the topic from digest emails
Archived topics
Archiving is more restrictive than closing. Archive a topic when it is old or outdated and you want to preserve it but significantly limit interaction. As Jeff Atwood described, archiving freezes a topic so that nothing about it can change.
Characteristics of archived topics
Archived topics have all the characteristics of closed topics, plus:
- Disable users’ ability to delete posts
- Disable likes
- Disable poll-based voting (effectively closing polls)
- Remove the topic from the
/toppage - Remove the topic from the suggested topics list at the bottom of topic pages
- Continue to be displayed in the Unread list (users see the post marking it as Archived)
Accessing archived topics
- Use the
status=archivedquery parameter on your forum URL:https://your-site.example.com/?status=archived - Archived topics remain visible when browsing specific categories
- Use the
status:archivedfilter in search to find archived topics
Unlisted topics
Unlisting a topic hides it from most users without removing it entirely. You might unlist topics that should remain accessible through a direct link but should not appear in general forum navigation or search results.
Characteristics of unlisted topics
- Prevent inclusion of the topic in lists for regular users, including:
- Homepage / latest list
- Unread topics list
- Search results
- Exclude the topic from digest emails
- Can only be accessed via a direct link
- Are not indexable by search engines (previously indexed topics may remain in search results for some time, depending on the search engine’s crawling schedule)
- Are excluded from automated user badges. Automated badges such as “Nice Topic” and “Good Reply” only apply to visible topics. Unlisting a topic may remove user badges.
- The icon tooltip may display a translated reason explaining why the topic was unlisted, when one is available
Accessing unlisted topics
- Use the
status=unlistedquery parameter (staff or admin only):https://your-site.example.com/?status=unlisted - Use the
status:unlistedfilter in search (staff or admin only) - Regular users who have a direct link can still view an unlisted topic, even if they cannot search for it
Icon indicators
All three states show a status icon next to the topic title in topic lists. You can hover over the icon to see a tooltip describing the state.
| State | Icon | Tooltip |
|---|---|---|
| Closed | Lock (topic.closed) | “Closed” |
| Archived | Lock (topic.closed) | “Archived” |
| Closed and archived | Lock (topic.closed) | “Locked and archived” |
| Unlisted | Crossed-out eye (far-eye-slash) | “Unlisted” plus reason, if available |
Both closed and archived topics display the same lock icon. The only way to tell the difference in topic lists is to hover over the icon and read the tooltip.
Important notes
- Admins, moderators, trust level 4 (TL4) users, and category group moderators (for their respective categories) are not affected by these limitations and can continue to post in and edit posts in both archived and closed topics.
- Polls are only closed by closing the poll itself or archiving the topic.
- The topic auto-close functionality cannot be used to close polls at a specific time and date.
- A topic can be in a combination of all three states: closed, archived, and unlisted.
Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I find archived topics?
A: You can use the status=archived query parameter in the URL or the status:archived filter in the search function.
Q: Can regular users reply to closed or archived topics?
A: No, regular users cannot reply to closed or archived topics. Admins, moderators, TL4 users, and category group moderators can still interact with these topics.
Q: Are unlisted topics completely hidden?
A: No, unlisted topics can still be accessed via direct links. They are hidden from most topic lists and search results for regular users, but anyone with the direct link can view them.
Q: Can I unlist an entire category instead of individual topics?
A: Yes. Categories can be made read-restricted or private using category security settings, which limits who can see them. Alternatively, individual topics within a category can be unlisted one by one. A common approach for preserving old content without deletion is to unlist the relevant topics and create a single index topic with direct links. This keeps the content accessible to anyone with the links while excluding it from the latest list, search, and digest emails. Unlisting a topic may retroactively remove automated badges such as “Nice Topic” from its posts.
Q: Does archiving topics reduce server or storage overhead?
A: No. Archiving is a behavioural flag set on the topic record in the database. It does not delete or compress any posts, uploads, or other data. Archived topics occupy the same database storage and are still queried in most contexts. Archiving removes topics from the /top page and the suggested topics list, which provides a minor reduction in query scope in those specific areas, but it is not a meaningful performance optimisation strategy. If storage reduction is the goal, deleting topics, or exporting and then deleting them, is the appropriate approach.
Q: How do unlisted topics affect search engine indexing?
A: Unlisted topics are not indexable by search engines because the HTML pages are not visible to crawlers. However, if a topic was previously listed and indexed before being unlisted, it may remain in search engine results for some time until the search engine re-crawls the page and removes it.
Q: Is “locking a post” the same as closing a topic?
A: No - these are two separate features that share a similar icon.
Closing a topic (this guide) prevents new replies to the entire topic. It is controlled by a closed flag on the topic itself and is the most common moderation action.
Locking a post is a per-post feature that prevents the post’s author from editing that specific post. It is used by staff to prevent a user from reverting a staff edit. It does not affect replies, visibility, or any other aspect of the topic.
Additional resources
- Best practices for archiving topics - #4 by codinghorror
- Using query strings to filter topic views
- How to hide archived topics from latests but show them in other pages?
- Locking Posts (preventing users from undoing staff edits)
Last edited by @MarkDoerr 2026-06-29T23:42:16Z
Last checked by @hugh 2024-07-31T06:08:41Z
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