I’d like to delete default category “site-feedback”, “staff”. But It is not possible to delete. Error message says “Can’t delete this category because it has chat channels.” Is there any way to delete the categories?

May I ask why you’d like to delete the #staff category? It’s only visible to admins and moderators by default, and it’s where the FAQs, Privacy Policy, and ToS base topics live (as well as the Admin guide). Though, in general, you can delete any category that does not have any topics or chat channe…

It is a bad idea to delete the default (pre-seeded) data. both the categories you mentioned are pre-seeded. This raises the risk of your discourse randomly breaking due to database corruption (missing values that it expects etc.) so proceed with caution. Unless you already know you’re sailing in unc…

I think deleting #contribute:site-feedback and #lounge are generally considered to be okay. Deleting #staff is not really advised as it contains the topics I mentioned above (and is just useful to have). I don’t believe deleting any of them will cause any database corruption though, but happy to be …

Ok, so I might have mis-read something in the past (or straight superstition). Per [image] Ok to delete default categories? Self-hosting Deleting them is totally safe, mucking with Lounge permissions is definitely not. It is safe to delete pre-seeded categ…

Thanks! If I am not bothering you…:folded_hands:t2: could you let me more specifically know how to recategorise any topics and delete any chat channels? I cannot find menu in admin mode:sob:

I think I would tentatively suggest that if you’re just starting to explore your Discourse then I would hold off on deleting any seeded categories or moving any of the FAQs, Privacy or ToS topics until you become more familiar with what’s what. :slight_smile: In the meantime you can change the visi…

There is a bit of a wrinkle here because we may be seeding chat channels for these categories even though chat is not enabled. You may have to enable chat in your site settings temporarily so you can find those channels to delete.

Can't delete this category because it has chat channels

Support

j.jaffeux (Joffrey Jaffeux) November 8, 2022, 2:35pm 10

@loic merged a fix for this issue, let us know how it goes for you please.

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/18865

Topic		Replies	Views
How to delete default categories with chats? Support	8	349	May 24, 2025
How do I delete topics and categories? Support	10	2799	June 14, 2018
How to delete "Site-feedback" Category Support	10	832	September 28, 2022
Delete the Staff Category? Support	16	6263	February 16, 2019
Deletion of "Feedback" fails due to unknown chat channel dependency? Bug category-experts	8	215	February 20, 2025

Can't delete this category because it has chat channels

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