# Changing topic\_excerpt\_maxlength does not update existing excerpts automatically
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [June 20, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017 "2023-06-20T11:50:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@manuel](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manuel)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017/1 "2023-06-20T11:50:44Z")
- I change `topic_excerpt_maxlength` to a different value.
- Existing topic excerpts are not updated
- When I make changes to an existing pinned topic, the excerpt is updated
I guess it would also work re-baking all excerpts on the server. But the setting not having an immediate effect is confusing for community managers.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017/2 "2023-06-20T22:24:42Z")
> [@manuel](#):
>
> I guess it would also work re-baking all excerpts on the server.
I think that’s a good guess.
> [@manuel](#):
>
> But the setting not having an immediate effect is confusing for community managers.
Having a setting change start a rebake of a million posts might also be confusing. And it’s not _that_ confusing since you already knew the answer. 🙂
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### Author:  [@manuel](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manuel)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017/3 "2023-06-20T22:36:33Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> And it’s not _that_ confusing since you already knew the answer
No, a client brought it up. It was confusing to them that changing the setting did not change the excerpt lengths. It was even more confusing when I brought up posts being baked and rebaked… 😇
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 1:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017/4 "2023-06-21T01:39:33Z")
Maybe I’m wrong.
I think other settings that require a rebake include such a note in the description. Some other changes rebake posts a few at a time.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/changing-topic-excerpt-maxlength-does-not-update-existing-excerpts-automatically/269017/5 "2023-06-28T20:12:58Z")
I’ve slipped this over to #Contribute > UX as I think it’s working as intended. I think a change to the setting description could make this clearer though. It’s currently:
`topic excerpt maxlength` - Maximum length of a topic excerpt/summary, generated from the first post in a topic.
We do have this on a couple of similar ones - ‘If you change this, you must rebake all posts with: “rake posts:rebake”’, though I don’t know if we could improve on that while we’re at it?