# Invite to a members only topic
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [August 18, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173 "2024-08-18T19:28:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@spdegabrielle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/spdegabrielle)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173/1 "2024-08-18T19:28:34Z")
Hi,
I recently tried to create an invite to a topic that is in a members only category (#lounge).
The idea was that if someone wants to see it they either need to be a member, or use the invite to join.
Instead I got a ‘not permitted’ error.
Is there a way to do this?
Would this work?
1. create the topic in a public category,
2. create the invite,
3. move the topic to the #lounge category
4. share invite
PS Any other piece of software I would just experiment, but I’ve got ~1000 users so I don’t want to break things for them.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2024, 8:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173/2 "2024-08-18T20:49:08Z")
If the person you are trying to invite does not have permissions to view the category that the topic is in when they try to redeem it, it won’t work under any circumstances that I can think of. It’s possible I’m misunderstanding your question though.
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### Author:  [@spdegabrielle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/spdegabrielle)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173/3 "2024-08-18T20:52:41Z")
if they use the invite they can see the post.
Non-members cannot see post.
Once they sign-up they have permission to view.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173/4 "2024-08-18T21:17:21Z")
> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> if they use the invite they can see the post.
Only if they are at a trust level (or have other permissions) to see the category that the post is in. For instance, if you invited a TL2 member to view a post in the Lounge category I don’t think it will work.
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### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/invite-to-a-members-only-topic/322173/5 "2024-08-18T21:17:35Z")
hmmm 🤔 I just successfully invited a test account to my own site into a new topic in a category they have permission to.
### Step 1: Secure category and create topic
### Step 2: Create and send invite
### Step 3: Receive invite and setup account
### Step 4: Arrive at secure topic
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are wanting to do?
Edit: If you want it to just be a member’s only category, then you can add trust\_level\_0 to the permissions. But you need to specify a group that also has permissions in the group field of the invite for this to work:
