# How to make an undeleteable topic?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 10, 2023, 8:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808 "2023-10-10T20:37:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chickenrocket](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chickenrocket)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/1 "2023-10-10T20:37:37Z")
As you know, when you first setup discourse, some default topics are created by the system account and you can’t delete them (you can by using the console but that’s not the point), I’d basically want to make a topic undeletable because our company has around 100ish employees and to prevent any of them getting compromised (such as forum moderators and leaders) I’d want to make confidential topics such as handbooks for certain departments and protocols undeletable.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/2 "2023-10-10T20:49:06Z")
Hi @chickenrocket welcome to Meta 👋 🙂
If you are simply wanting to disable the ability of users to be able to delete their posts, then perhaps admin-setting `max post deletions per minute` set to 0 is what you want?
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### Author:  [@chickenrocket](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chickenrocket)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/3 "2023-10-10T20:52:34Z")
No, users should be able to delete their own posts, what I’m trying to achieve is basically a topic which can’t be deleted, but can be archived, locked, unlisted, etc. Like the topics created by the system account. I tried to impersonate the system account and create a topic however that topic is deleteable by moderators/administrators and the system account itself
Is there a command I can run to make the topic not have a certain property or something along those lines? Thanks
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/4 "2023-10-10T20:55:39Z")
I don’t know about one topic, but you can create a category with permissions for admins to create and everyone else to read only.
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### Author:  [@chickenrocket](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chickenrocket)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/5 "2023-10-10T20:58:17Z")
We have department leaders/heads which have their respective groups and categories.
Also, can anything in the category be deleted by the group members or only by the group owner and moderators/administrators?
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/6 "2023-10-10T20:59:50Z")
also important to note that Discourse only soft deletes posts / topics by default. Permanent deletion requires enabling a hidden site setting:
> [@Introducing permanently delete post functionality](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-permanently-delete-post-functionality/207109):
>
> When a post is deleted in Discourse, we perform a soft-delete. This means that post is still present in the database in case an administrator wants to recover it later. A soft-delete is not sufficient when the deleted post contains sensitive information and must be pruned from the database completely. For those situations, we are introducing the ability to permanently delete a post. To use this feature, enable the can permanently delete setting. However, please be aware of the risks i…
Deleted topics can be found in your `/latest?status=deleted` path.
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### Author:  [@chickenrocket](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chickenrocket)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 9:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/7 "2023-10-10T21:02:23Z")
Oh, well that solves all abuse-related issues if it can just be recovered lol. Just quickly; are forum moderators/leaders able to “permanently” delete topics?
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 9:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/8 "2023-10-10T21:07:42Z")
> [@chickenrocket](#):
>
> Also, can anything in the category be deleted by the group members or only by the group owner and moderators/administrators?
Go to the category you want to secure and click the admin wrench in top right corner:
Go to the security tab and select your group level permissions:
> [@chickenrocket](#):
>
> Oh, well that solves all abuse-related issues if it can just be recovered lol. Just quickly; are forum moderators/leaders able to “permanently” delete topics?
If you see my previous post, you will see in the link that any permanent deletion requires enabling a hidden site setting that can only be used by admins.
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### Author:  [@chickenrocket](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chickenrocket)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 9:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/9 "2023-10-10T21:12:58Z")
Thank you!
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2023, 9:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/10 "2023-10-10T21:14:00Z")
No problem, glad that helped. 🙂 good luck!
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2023, 9:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-make-an-undeleteable-topic/281808/11 "2023-11-09T21:14:56Z")
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