# Discourse doesn't send notifications after an unlisted topic is listed
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** notifications, unlisting
**Created:** [October 5, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192 "2023-10-05T18:57:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/aas)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192/1 "2023-10-05T18:57:26Z")
I think this might be a bug since I could not find any other topics about it or related settings. I’ve only seen topics regarding the opposite problem of notifications being wrongly sent: [Newly-created "unlisted" Topics send "new topic" Notifications](https://meta.discourse.org/t/newly-created-unlisted-topics-send-new-topic-notifications/134598)
Steps to reproduce:
- Create an new, unlisted topic
- Before posting, click the ⚙ and select the `Toggle Unlisted` option
- After creating the unlisted topic, list the topic
Notice that users do not receive notifications in Discourse or emails after the topic is listed.
**Expected behavior**
- users should not get notifications when the unlisted topic is created
- This works as expected. 👍
- users _should_ get notifications once the topic is unlisted
- This does not work as expected.
Is this the intended behavior? Is there a setting to make it so users will get notifications only once the topic is listed?
My use-case for this is to create an unlisted topic to use as a draft. I do this for announcement posts which I will edit until they are ready. Only once the draft is complete do I want to list the topic for the public and have them get notifications.
I suppose as a workaround, I can create an unlisted draft topic and then copy/paste the contents to a new topic once I’m ready to publish then delete the original draft.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192/2 "2023-10-05T19:14:18Z")
Just to note, Unlisted topics aren’t the best for creating a draft topic. If you create one in a permission-controlled category (eg. `#staff`) and then recategorise it whenever you’re ready, that works pretty well. Or you can set up Shared Drafts by adding a category to your `shared drafts category` admin setting. That allows you to create a limited visibility topic and then publish to the correct category when ready. 👍
(Both of those need `disable category edit notifications` and `disable tag edit notifications` to be left default off to send out the notifications)
* * *
But I’ll attempt a repro of this bug and see what I can find out. 👍 🙂
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### Author:  [@aas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/aas)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192/3 "2023-10-05T19:16:34Z")
Genius! 🧠 I didn’t know about “share drafts” - I love it! Thanks so much.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2023, 1:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doesnt-send-notifications-after-an-unlisted-topic-is-listed/281192/4 "2023-10-07T13:25:37Z")
I’ve given the initial bug report a run-through and it seems to be working as usual.
- As test user (TL1), set a category to Watching First Post
- As admin, create a new topic in that category and toggle it as ‘Unlisted’ before posting
- A notification is sent out to the test user:
The test user also receives notifications of Likes, Mentions and Replies for things while the topic was Unlisted as well:
You wouldn’t normally get another notification on Listing/Unlisting, so that’s working as normal too - though it does now appear in the topic list with an Unread count:
And notifications for everything now it’s listed work as well:
I think everything is working as intended. 👍
* * *
But, for those reasons, Unlisting a topic to create a draft isn’t the recommended way as it’s often noisier than you’d think. Hopefully you got on better with the Shared Drafts. 🤞