# How do I change forum created date?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [March 11, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826 "2025-03-11T17:30:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lilstranded](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lilstranded)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/1 "2025-03-11T17:30:07Z")
Recently I’ve moved my xenforo forum to discourse but now it shows “Created \< 1 month ago” in the about page but the community was started in 2016, but its showing the discourse instance created date, how can I change this?
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/3 "2025-03-11T17:31:48Z")
Did you import all your topics from Xenforo? AFAIK, that date will reflect the oldest post, which would be automatic if you migrated your content.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/4 "2025-03-11T18:00:53Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> AFAIK, that date will reflect the oldest post,
That’s not quite it. I had someone else who wanted to change that date before. I tracked down the query that gets this date and found a way to change it. I can’t remember and can’t find any notes I may have made.
You’d look at the HBS for the about page, then see where that comes from (it’s some query that gets . . . something sort of strange) and then update that record with whatever date you want.
Hopefully that’s enough of a hint. That’s my best free answer.
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### Author:  [@lilstranded](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lilstranded)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/5 "2025-03-11T18:20:25Z")
Yes, all the posts were imported, can confirm that!
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 6:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/6 "2025-03-11T18:26:42Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> That’s not quite it. I had someone else who wanted to change that date before. I tracked down the query that gets this date and found a way to change it. I can’t remember and can’t find any notes I may have made.
Wow our AI response told that to me too, but I dismissed it as an hallucination because I couldn’t believe we would do _that_, but looks like it is indeed true 🤯
So the AI solution is correct here @lilstranded
> [@support-bot](#):
>
> **Steps to update the date:**
>
> 1. Access your Discourse database (e.g., via SSH or a database GUI tool such as `psql` or HeidiSQL).
> 2. Identify the first row in the `schema_migration_details` table.
> 3. Run a query to update the `created_at` field with the desired date:
>
> -
>
> ```plaintext
>
> ```
>
> UPDATE schema\_migration\_details SET created\_at = ‘2016-01-01 00:00:00’ WHERE id = 1;
>
> ```plaintext
>
> * After making this change, restart your Discourse instance:
> * For Docker-based installations: `./launcher restart app`.
>
> ```
Just adding how to get there would be
```plaintext
# ssh into the server
cd /var/discourse
docker exec -it app bash
su postgres
psql
/connect discourse
UPDATE schema_migration_details SET created_at = '2016-01-01 00:00:00' WHERE id = 1;
\q
exit
exit
exit
```
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/7 "2025-03-11T18:54:00Z")
> [@support-bot](#):
>
> schema\_migration\_details
YES! That was it! I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I did, except I’m pretty sure that I figured it out myself. 😿
> [@Falco](#):
>
> I dismissed it as an hallucination because I couldn’t believe we would do _that_, but looks like it is indeed true
Yeah. I figured that it was like that because you had to do something in case there were no posts or anything else to base it on.
I suppose someone could add something to `base.rb` that would set that to the oldest post in the post-import stuff that it does.
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### Author:  [@Richie](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Richie)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/8 "2025-03-11T18:54:45Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> I had someone else who wanted to change that date before. I tracked down the query that gets this date and found a way to change it. I can’t remember and can’t find any notes I may have made.
Am I the only one who does remember this? And I didn’t need AI? 🤣
FYI:
> [@New and improved About page at /about is live](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-and-improved-about-page-at-about-is-live/324212/59):
>
> Thank you, that looks a lot better than the About page we had before! slight_smile Is it possible to see the number of overall/total topics and posts again? /EDIT: Just noticed: I see “Created 2 years ago”. Can this be adjusted? We started our forum in 2012, but migrated to Discourse 2 years ago. So this information is not accurate.
> [@New and improved About page at /about is live](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-and-improved-about-page-at-about-is-live/324212/63):
>
> Here’s the query that gets the date: result = DB.query\_single \<\<~SQL SELECT created\_at FROM schema\_migration\_details ORDER BY created\_at LIMIT 1 SQL If you’re self-hosted, there should be a way to update the earliest created\_at item in that table with some other date. Writing the query is left as an exercise to the ready. play_button Don't try this at home
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### Author:  [@martin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/martin)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2025, 3:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-change-forum-created-date/356826/9 "2025-03-13T03:42:38Z")
We also use this in our `existing_site?` migration helper, I also always thought it was a bit odd that we didn’t store this information elsewhere, like even if we had some `site` table that had one row in it or something to correspond with the `site` model:
>