I can turn it invisible, close it and delete it, but how can I soft-delete it in case I need to see the content or IP of the author in the future? Thanks!

To answer the OP. You only soft delete in Discourse hard delete is reserved for delete spammers when you nuke the entire user. Approaches you can take when dealing with deleted content: There is the log in admin user logs to /admin/logs/staff_action_logs to see all deleted topics You can use…

We’ve moved those posts to a private category when necessary.

That works, but it is a workaround. Most systems do have a soft-delete, for security purposes (IE: a legal entity requesting an IP of a post, etc)

Yes, that would be the solution. There is a UI provision in the edit history for hiding revisions of a post if someone posts a SSN or phone #, etc.

Can you explain more? what do you mean by a UI provision?

There is a button to hide edit revisions in the edit history dialog. A trashcan button. This only hides the specific revision though.

Yeah I see what you mean. Anyway I think there is a fair point of having some sort of soft-delete for forums that need to maintain the posts for legal issues, because if you are requested to show the original post info and you don’t have it, you can be blamed for that, in some countries.

Isn’t “Delete Topic” a soft-delete? You can still get to it using ?status=deleted, I don’t know how long they stick around, but I know they still exist for a while.

Yep for a while, but then they are deleted. Suppose they are deleted and you need to deliver information for legal purposes say, after 2 months? that’s why soft-delete is missing in this case.

“Delete Topic” topics aren’t purged from the database.

How can I soft-delete a topic?

Product Support

cpradio (cpradio) May 4, 2015, 9:12pm 12

Hmm… I just checked our instance and we have some deleted topics that go back to 2010.

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If I want to completely delete a post, I should just hide them? Product Support	12	5494	May 11, 2021
How to make an undeleteable topic? Product Support	9	601	October 10, 2023
Deleted replies and topics - are they purged from db or do they stay forever in db? Product Support	1	567	September 28, 2023
Soft-delete override? Product Support	4	219	March 7, 2025
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How can I soft-delete a topic?

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