# Best practices for archiving topics
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [2015年四月1日 18:17 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069 "2015-04-01T18:17:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2015年六月19日 02:52 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/22 "2015-06-19T02:52:41Z")
I guess we have different definitions for what “archived” means.
To me it does _not_ mean “ready for the trash heap” but “saved for posterity”.
That is, they _should not_ be like unlisted topics, uhmm, isn’t that what unlisted is for?
They _should_ be accessible via Search
They _should_ be crawled by bots
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2015年六月19日 03:21 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/23 "2015-06-19T03:21:04Z")
[http://www.issuesandalibis.org/archsafe.jpg](http://www.issuesandalibis.org/archsafe.jpg)
@mcwumbly you have peculiar ideas of what “the archives” means, at least in terms of how the real world analog works.
It is more like cold storage, out of the way, a bit harder to get to, but being completely inaccessible – absolutely never the intent.
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [2015年六月19日 03:56 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/24 "2015-06-19T03:56:55Z")
OK, I think I’m on the same page with both of you actually. There were some earlier conversations regarding topics here being _deleted_ because they became obsolete or misleading as the world around them changed.
This still rubs me the wrong way, so I was reaching for a solution. I think “archive and unlist” would be a better way to handle that… which I noted above:
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> (or should those be just features of ‘unlisted’ and a shortcut could exist to “archive and unlist”?)
And now re-reading earlier posts I see it was already mentioned before too:
> [@cpradio](#):
>
> There is already a solution for this, they can unlist it and archive it. Done. Bam. Easy. Archive does not equal invisible.
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### Author:  [@twbartlett](https://meta.discourse.org/u/twbartlett)
#### Post date: [2015年十月7日 15:50 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/25 "2015-10-07T15:50:38Z")
> [@DeanMarkTaylor](#):
>
> Disables display in “all categories” “latest” page (usually the homepage for logged in users).
This doesn’t seem to the case? On 1.3.0 stable (yea i know it’s old) , archiving a topic does not change it’s visibility in the “Latest” or “Category” view. It still appears, with a lock next to it.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [2015年十月7日 22:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/26 "2015-10-07T22:53:17Z")
We never intended archive to hide, if you need to hide stuff you can make your topic unlisted
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### Author:  [@twbartlett](https://meta.discourse.org/u/twbartlett)
#### Post date: [2015年十月8日 08:31 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/27 "2015-10-08T08:31:21Z")
Fair enough, it works for me either way - was just trying to help @DeanMarkTaylor amend his notes.
@sam is this kinda correct:
- Closing is stopping further comment, but still allowing edits?
- Archived is closing, but also ‘freezing’ so that the topic cannot be amended at all.
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [2015年十月8日 21:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/28 "2015-10-08T21:26:38Z")
Cheers @twbartlett
I am unable to edit my post above - probably because significant time has past since it’s initial posting.
I can confirm that the following is false (at least for admin in my test setup):
> [@DeanMarkTaylor](#):
>
> Disables display in “all categories” “latest” page (usually the homepage for logged in users).
But the following is important to remember when marking a topic as Archived:
> [@DeanMarkTaylor](#):
>
> Closing or archiving a topic does not bump it’s last activity date.
So it will not suddenly appear in “latest” because you archive it. If this does happen it’s likely something else you have done to the topic that has caused this.
And the following above statement is kinda pointless because of the above clarification:
> [@DeanMarkTaylor](#):
>
> You can still see archived topics when browsing to a specific category.
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [2016年一月27日 07:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/29 "2016-01-27T07:02:37Z")
> [@DeanMarkTaylor](#):
>
> I am unable to edit my post above - probably because significant time has past since it’s initial posting.
I’ve now made [my original post](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/20) a “wiki post” ([because that’s a feature now](https://meta.discourse.org/t/setting-min-trust-to-wiki-fy-post/32265/15)) and made the correction.
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### Author:  [@techAPJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/techAPJ)
#### Post date: [2016年三月30日 14:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/30 "2016-03-30T14:47:01Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> make it so unlisting a topic removes it from Google search results by adding the no index header.
@riking did this via:
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/2f0bd6294c2866889f5d7f741d19009efa64f7ff](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/2f0bd6294c2866889f5d7f741d19009efa64f7ff)
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [2016年八月16日 00:41 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/31 "2016-08-16T00:41:33Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> It is more like cold storage, out of the way, a bit harder to get to
Just putting this here because it seems relevant and “cool” …
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSc1bfTMn4I&t=9m6s)
Sometimes it’s nice to pull something out of cold storage…
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [2016年十月7日 18:27 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/32 "2016-10-07T18:27:43Z")
Note [my original post](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/20) has been updated and reposted in the #faq:
> [@Understanding closed, unlisted, and archived topics](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-is-the-difference-between-closed-unlisted-and-archived-topics/51238):
>
> bookmark This guide explains the differences between Closed, Unlisted, and Archived topics in Discourse, including their characteristics and use cases. person_raising_hand Required user level: All users Discourse offers various ways to manage topics, including closing, unlisting, and archiving. Each of these options serves a different purpose and has specific effects on how topics are displayed and interacted with. This guide will explain the differences between these three states and th…
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [2016年十月7日 23:29 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-archiving-topics/27069/33 "2016-10-07T23:29:56Z")
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