# How do you add another person to a private message when it's already sent?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 27, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357 "2016-04-27T23:16:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@LivThePotterhead](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LivThePotterhead)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/1 "2016-04-27T23:16:54Z")
Title explains it all.
I don’t know how to add another person to my private message because I forgot to invite them after I invited one person to participate.
Can someone tell me how? @AnonymousPerson did it with @Liza_Conrad
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/2 "2016-04-27T23:25:46Z")
You use the Invite button and invite them. I think invite is tied to a Trust Level though. TL 1 maybe?
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### Author:  [@LivThePotterhead](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LivThePotterhead)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/3 "2016-04-27T23:43:26Z")
Is TL1 member? I forgot…
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/4 "2016-04-27T23:47:57Z")
Then it is possible the forum you visit changed the setting to be a higher trust level, better to probably ask one of the admins/mods there.
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### Author:  [@LivThePotterhead](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LivThePotterhead)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/5 "2016-04-27T23:48:47Z")
On Hopscotch Forum, TL1 is basic, TL2 is member, TL3 is Regular.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2016, 12:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/6 "2016-04-28T00:45:37Z")
Unless settings are tweaked, AFAIK the default Trust Level for getting Invite ability is Trust Level 2
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/5?u=mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/5)
> Users at trust level 2 can…
> Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics
> Invite outside users to PMs making a group PM
> Daily like limit increased by 1.5 ×
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/7 "2019-01-12T17:49:16Z")
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### Author:  [@EricGT](https://meta.discourse.org/u/EricGT)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/8 "2021-07-14T20:28:36Z")
One would think that being an admin and using Discourse on multiple sites for a few years I would know this, but so untrue.
As noted in the [original post](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357) I thought the use of @ would invite someone to a private/personal message. But that is not the case.
Also as noted there is the `invite button` but after searching the entire topic and checking all the buttons including the wrench it turns out there is no button named `invite`. Instead just under the first post is
It is pretty obvious how it works so I will not elaborate.
* * *
The reason for adding the reply here is because this topic is the first result Google offered.
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2021, 7:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/9 "2021-07-15T19:21:52Z")
It is also possible to “reply as new group message” - see the arrow on the top left corner of the composer. This allows you to create a new message starting with the same recipients. You can then adjust the recipient list without having to explicitly invite them to the message or give them access to the past discussions.
This is especially interesting for folks using group inboxes to provide email support, with group inboxes. Sometimes you want to expand the conversation to include more email addresses, and this is one way to do it. Discourse for Teams is well suited for this, as per: [https://support.teams.discourse.com/docs?topic=106](https://support.teams.discourse.com/docs?topic=106)
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/10 "2021-09-30T01:00:55Z")
### How do you turn on the ability to add a person to a private message?
I’ve just been alerted by one of our users that they cannot add someone to private message. On investigation, this is replicated in my test accounts in that forum. My admin account still can.
My other Discourse forums do not have this problem. [Safe mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true) doesn’t resolve it. I can’t see any setting that I’ve changed which prevents people being added to a PM.
Am I missing something?
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/11 "2021-09-30T01:09:51Z")
What’s missing specifically? is it the “add or remove…” button?
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/12 "2021-09-30T01:15:42Z")
I’ve tested it a bit further and are still scratching my head. For good measure I’ve returned all settings related to Trust Levels back to default. This is what I have:
On the problem forum
1. When my test user is TL1, they get no option.
2. When my test user is TL2, they get `Remove`
3. When my test user is TL3/4 they still get just `Remove`
On the working forum
1. When my test user is TL1, they get `Remove`
2. When my test user is TL2, they get `Add or Remove`
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/13 "2021-09-30T01:22:44Z")
Hmm, it might be the `min trust level to allow invite` site setting? I was just able to repro similar results by changing that… I think it’s because you can invite someone to the site by adding an email address as a PM recipient.
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/14 "2021-09-30T01:27:10Z")
> [@awesomerobot](#):
>
> it might be the `min trust level to allow invite` site setting?
It doesn’t seem to be. I had that on the default `2: Member`. Changing it to TL0 hasn’t changed the behaviour either. I’ve now got all settings that I can find involving Trust and tl etc on default settings but it persists.
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 1:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/15 "2021-09-30T01:36:48Z")
perhaps the `must approve users` site setting? the related settings certainly seem like they could be clearer here
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### Author:  [@Benjamin\_D](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Benjamin_D)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 2:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/16 "2021-09-30T02:22:02Z")
> [@awesomerobot](#):
>
> perhaps the `must approve users` site setting?
indeed
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/76a7b75d8ab606b76e2270aa4bb327e2784bc1f7](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/76a7b75d8ab606b76e2270aa4bb327e2784bc1f7)
there is also `max invites per day` that has to be greater than zero
and `max_allowed_message_recipients` that can interfere
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/17 "2021-09-30T23:32:05Z")
Thank you both, `must approve users` is it. I had no idea that it would also prevent the adding of existing users to a Private Message. Surely this is unintended - I would have thought that we would only want to prevent the addition of email addresses to Private Messages rather than blocking all additions.
> [@Benjamin\_D](#):
>
> [DEV: Reuse can\_invite\_to\_forum? in can\_invite\_to? (#14392) · discourse/discourse@76a7b75 · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/76a7b75d8ab606b76e2270aa4bb327e2784bc1f7)
I was kind of hoping that this commit would resolve this problem, but it instead fixes another one.
At present we have to choose between:
1. Allowing people to sign up (subject to approval) and having no user additions to Private Messages
_or_
2. Becoming invite-only and having a workaround to allow casual signups
@awesomerobot, would you consider asking for this to be addressed? Is this a bug report or a feature request?
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/18 "2021-10-01T20:23:13Z")
> [@nathank](#):
>
> I would have thought that we would only want to prevent the addition of email addresses to Private Messages rather than blocking all additions.
Yeah I agree that would be better.
I’m not sure if it’s a bug… I suspect it’s always been this way, and it’s a lack of nuance? I can make a todo on our end to improve it anyway, it seems unnecessarily confusing.
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/19 "2021-10-01T21:17:52Z")
Good news: there’s another topic here that raises the same issue: [Users unable to add others to a personal message - #38 by jochen\_weber](https://meta.discourse.org/t/users-unable-to-add-others-to-a-personal-message/97671/38) and the team has already been looking into fixing it.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2021, 9:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-add-another-person-to-a-private-message-when-its-already-sent/43357/20 "2021-10-01T21:56:17Z")