Introducing the unified new view for the topic list

martin · June 9, 2026, 2:56am

Following on from The "new new" has been enabled on Meta , we are now introducing an upcoming change to make the unified new view the default for the topic list on all Discourse sites.

What is unified new?

This change modifies the New tab on the topic list to have subtabs for Topics (topics that are new to the user), Replies (unread topics), and All (a combination of the two):

What is unified new replacing?

The old default is to have a separate /new and /unread route with associated top menu navigation items, which was generally a bit trickier to explain for members who are new to Discourse:

Turning on unified new in your community

To turn this on, head to the Upcoming changes page in your admin area (/admin/config/upcoming-changes) and find the Enable unified new item. Update the Enabled for… field to opt your site in to this new design:

sren-1 · June 9, 2026, 9:32am

I will never understand New vs Unread vs Unseen vs … wait, isn’t there another thing called Hot ?

chapoi · June 9, 2026, 9:42am

And now you don’t need to anymore!

Or at least, a bit less

Vsekraski · June 9, 2026, 12:07pm

I don’t have the “Enable unified new” option. I wanted to enable it but couldn’t find it. I’m always ready to enable and test updates

chapoi · June 9, 2026, 12:15pm

Are you on the latest version?

Vsekraski · June 9, 2026, 12:25pm

Moin · June 9, 2026, 12:57pm

Looks like you last updated your forum about 2 weeks ago. The Discourse team merges new stuff often several times a day, so often you only use the truly latest version for a short time after updating.

The smiley telling you that you are up to date doesn’t reference each single commit. Then it would be unhappy all the time. It checks the version number telling you to update each time that is increased. Security updates are usually merged right before that happens. It’s the time where you should update to get them and sort of a reminder to update once a month even if there were none.

But if you want to test a brand new announced feature, you often need to update - even though the smiley is happy - because the version number hasn’t changed yet.

These are all the commits that were merged since you updated your forum Changelog | Discourse releases | d55ea4fd0f → latest
The upcoming change for unified new view is quite at the top of that list, so it’s brand new.

awesomerobot · June 9, 2026, 7:26pm

Never say never! There are various settings that can change this by site or account, but the defaults are:

New: a topic that was created within the past 2 days that you haven’t opened yet
Unread: topics you’ve already read that have new replies
Unseen: topics you’ve never read at any point (hidden by default, a bit of a niche case)

The hope with the combined new is that the labels topics/replies are a little more intuitive than figuring out the difference between new/unread

Moin · June 9, 2026, 8:30pm

I think “new” are not necessarily topics from the past 2 days. There is a user preference where you can configure which topics appear in new

Similarly, unread only shows topics you are tracking or watching that have new replies (there is a preference for automatically tracking topics after some time of reading; there is also one for tracking/watching on reply, and when creating the topic, you can track/watch all topics with a tag or in a category, and you can manually edit the topic tracking status of each topic).

So I get why it’s complicated. Especially the fact that not all new replies are in unread.

I think it also helped that this was explained on the pages of /new and /unread. Since those aren’t hidden for new users when they are empty, this used to be a great place to learn how these lists work.

martin · June 10, 2026, 5:18am

It just felt like a lot of text to show all the time to users just because they have an empty list, regardless of whether a user account was 1 day old or 10 years old…this is what we show now:

But there is probably a middle ground, like maybe we could show more info if the user account isn’t very old, or we could add more info in a tooltip? @awesomerobot WDYT?

Overall we still have to do more work on user tips/new user education, hopefully at some point we can get to this.

Moin · June 10, 2026, 6:05am

I think your post would better fit into the topic I quoted than into this topic.

Since /new and /unread are hidden from the navigation if they are empty I never felt like seeing those all the time.

Heliosurge · June 19, 2026, 4:10pm

This link opens New All Tab not the New Topics Tab

For UI parity the number of All new should b beside the All tab like Topics

martin · June 21, 2026, 11:36pm

Ooh good catch, thanks, I will make a fix

martin · June 25, 2026, 4:18am

Okay fix is here

github.com/discourse/discourse

UX: Fix unread + new "topics remaining" links when unified new enabled (#41181)

main ← ux/fix-unread-new-links-unified

merged 05:55AM - 25 Jun 26 UTC

martin-brennan

+15 -8

Fixes the links in the following browse more section at the bottom of the topic… to point to the correct New tab (Topics, Replies) if unified new is enabled: > There are UNREAD_LINK and NEW_LINK topics remaining, or browse other topics in CATEGORY_LINK c.f. https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-the-unified-new-view-for-the-topic-list/404728/12?u=martin

Moin · June 26, 2026, 8:44pm

Is it possible to show the separate counts for topics and replies in DiscourseHub so I still get the same information I got before this change was enabled?

And is there an easier way to get /new ordered by date like the old new and unread tab used to work without clicking “Activity” twice?

martin · June 28, 2026, 11:23pm

Hmm this is a bit odd, the list is ordering by Activity by default here on Meta for me:

So this is not an intentional change…not sure why that “Missing images” one is bumped up for you.

I’m not very familiar with DiscourseHub… @pmusaraj do you know how easy this would be? Basically with enable_unified_new enabled, the New tab shows subtabs with All, Topics (what used to be on /new), and Replies (unread). I guess there is something I haven’t changed in DiscourseHub for this and it’s just showing the combined count as the All subtab would? How can we fix this?

Moin · June 28, 2026, 11:34pm

Maybe because I created the topic? I used the “mark unread” feature on another topic I created and it appears at the top too

If you mark a topic you created as unread, does that appear at the top?

This is what I currently see in Discourse hub

On my forum I can see both numbers, because the change is not enabled. For Meta I only see the total instead of separate numbers

martin · June 29, 2026, 3:53am

Yep confirmed this is it:

And I found where this comes from in the code:

github.com/discourse/discourse

lib/topic_query.rb

e0d325954


      
            new_results = remove_muted(new_results, @user, options)
            new_results = remove_dismissed(new_results, @user)
          
            unread_results =
              apply_max_age_limit(TopicQuery.unread_filter(base, whisperer: @user&.whisperer?), options)
          
            base.joins_values.concat(new_results.joins_values, unread_results.joins_values)
            base.joins_values.uniq!
            results = base.merge(new_results.or(unread_results))
          
            results = results.order("CASE WHEN topics.user_id = tu.user_id THEN 1 ELSE 2 END")
            suggested_ordering(results, options)
          end
          
          def unseen_filter(list, user_first_seen_at, whisperer)
            list = list.where("topics.bumped_at >= ?", user_first_seen_at)
          
            col_name = whisperer ? "highest_staff_post_number" : "highest_post_number"
            list.where("tu.last_read_post_number IS NULL OR tu.last_read_post_number < topics.#{col_name}")
          end

Which is what the standalone Unread list does:

github.com/discourse/discourse

lib/topic_query.rb

e0d325954


      
          def unread_results(options = {})
            result =
              TopicQuery.unread_filter(
                default_results(options.reverse_merge(unordered: true)),
                whisperer: @user&.whisperer?,
              ).order("CASE WHEN topics.user_id = tu.user_id THEN 1 ELSE 2 END")

I guess since we are combining New and Unread into the one list, it does make sense that we follow those same rules…but I could be convinced otherwise, I don’t have a preference.

@sam and @osama you implemented this list originally, WDYT? Should the “All” list follow the rule of bumping current user’s topics to the top if they are unread? Or should we just order by Activity in All and leave the special unread sorting to the Replies tab?

sam · June 29, 2026, 4:00am

I think it is fine to follow the same rule, feels like a big outlier but it will help the people that depend on it

Topic		Replies	Views
New Topics is showing all Topics New & unread Support	6	122	June 13, 2026
Experimental new "New" view groups admin setting Support sidebar	9	619	August 22, 2025
The new-new functionality: why call it "new" not "unread"? UX	24	447	December 9, 2025
The "new new" has been enabled on Meta Announcements sidebar	31	2611	December 6, 2023
Where do new users learn about how new and unread work now? UX	0	66	July 2, 2025

Introducing the unified new view for the topic list

What is unified new?

What is unified new replacing?

Turning on unified new in your community

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