In a support discussion titled “Deleted post is still there shown as a hidden post,” kenjdarhan reports that deleted replies remain visible as hidden posts (in red) even after setting deletion parameters to zero. Lilly clarifies that deleted posts are soft-deleted — visible only to staff (admins and moderators) in orange — and are not permanently erased by default. Regular users can undelete their own posts within the time window set by delete removed posts after; after that, only staff can view them. Lilly also notes that deleted posts can be restored via the “undo” option accessible through the three-dot menu, after un-hiding the reply. JammyDodger adds that to permanently delete a post (hard-delete), the hidden site setting can_permanently_delete must be enabled, granting admins the ability to erase posts irreversibly from the database. JammyDodger provides links to meta.discourse.org and meta.discourse.org for further details. In short, soft-deletion is standard for audit and recovery; hard-deletion requires explicit admin action and configuration.
it is deleted - for your users. only mods and admins (staff) can see deleted posts indicated in orange. records in Discourse are rarely ever permanently deleted, but it is possible. that delete removed posts after setting is the author delete setting - if a regular user deletes a post how long until it is permanently deleted for them.
note: if you ever need to restore a deleted post (orange highlighted) , you should be able to click the dots below the post to get to the undo icon. it will be hidden so you will have to unhide it by clicking “view 1 unhidden reply” before you can restore it.
As Lilly says, when clicking on the dustbin icon the post will be soft-deleted (that is, only visible to admins and mods[1]). The delete removed posts after time is how long a user has the option to ‘undelete’ their post and reverse their decision before it becomes visible to only admin/mods.
To hard-delete a post you would need to enable the hidden site setting can_permanently_delete, which would allow an admin to permanently delete that post from the database with no means to restore it.
More info can be found in:
Introducing permanently delete post functionality
Enable setting to allow admins to permanently delete data
and TL4 if tl4 delete posts and topics is enabled ↩︎
