In a support discussion titled “Archiving vs Closing & Bulk Topic Update,” JoshDevInit seeks clarification on managing old forum topics. They ask about the functional differences between archived and closed topics, hoping archived ones would be hidden from category views and only accessible via search — but zogstrip confirms this isn’t possible; both remain visible in categories. JoshDevInit further inquires whether archived topics remain permanently in their category (without bumping) and whether setting “auto close topic hours” affects existing topics — the latter only applies to new topics. SidV and dax provide helpful links to official Discourse guides explaining topic states: archived topics are immutable and non-bumpable, closed topics can’t receive replies but remain visible, and unlisted topics are hidden from category lists. For bulk operations, zogstrip explains users can select multiple topics via the list view and use the wrench icon to archive or close them in bulk, easing cleanup for large forums.
Over time our forum has become rather cluttered with old topics so we are undergoing a clean up task. I have a couple of quick questions (apologies if these have been answered elsewhere!)…
What is the difference between Archived and Closed topics? I have seen elsewhere that an archived topic cannot be altered at all whereas a closed topic simply cannot be replied to. We were hoping that closed topics would still be visible within their category whereas archived topics would only be available to view if they are searched for. Is this possible? It seems at the moment that archived topics can still be viewed within their category?
Is there a way to bulk-update a number of topics, perhaps where there hasn’t been an update in X amount of time? This clean-up is long overdue so manually archiving each individual topic will not be an insignificant task!
In any topics list, you can click the “list” icon left to the “Topics” header to enable the bulk selection of topics. After selecting some topics, click the on the right and select either “Close” or “Archive” topics.
So am I right in saying that a post will not be bumped when it is archived, but will remain in the Category itself forever (or until it’s deleted)?
And with regard to bulk updating topics, if we use the ‘auto close topic hours’ on a category, will that be actioned against all existing topics that haven’t been updated within that window or will that only work for subsequent posts/topics?
on the right and select either “Close” or “Archive” topics.