# (Mailing List) Link to private message
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [8월 15, 2014, 3:06오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897 "2014-08-15T15:06:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lake54](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lake54)
#### Post date: [8월 15, 2014, 3:06오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/1 "2014-08-15T15:06:19Z")
One of the “benefits” with a traditional mailing list is that you can email a contributor directly. Discourse (amongst others) prevents this because it hides the user’s email address (a good thing).
Would it be possible to have a link to PM a user, either by going to the website (with the composer on screen, with their username filled in), or alternatively (possibly preferred?) a link to a tokenized email to allow them to initiate a PM with a user via email? So instead of replies+%{reply\_key}, it could be pm+%{pm\_key}?
A post-v1.0 in any case, but would really help sell Discourse to our members.
---
### Author:  [@lake54](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lake54)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 6:43오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/2 "2014-10-08T18:43:33Z")
Just bumping this to see if the request is viable at all?
---
### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 7:02오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/3 "2014-10-08T19:02:53Z")
> [@lake54](#):
>
> One of the “benefits” with a traditional mailing list is that you can email a contributor directly.
To be fair, this is not always true, depending on how the mailing list is configured. 😉
A two-click workaround is to click on the user name at the top of the notification, then click the “Private Message” button on that user’s profile page. But yeah, maybe an extra PM link near the name could be helpful.
---
### Author:  [@lake54](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lake54)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 7:25오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/4 "2014-10-08T19:25:57Z")
It’s definitely a route that many people can take, but for email-only users this would mean they had to log in (potentially an extra step or two).
A tokenized address as mentioned in my OP would be spot on.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 7:29오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/5 "2014-10-08T19:29:23Z")
Pretty sure @paully21 has also requested this.
---
### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 7:42오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/6 "2014-10-08T19:42:34Z")
Yeah, a tokenized email link seems pretty good as long as it doesn’t end up in the `From:` field. If it did, then it’d likely hurt deliverability with a lot of providers, and might make it difficult for some people who rely on it for sorting/filtering email.
---
### Author:  [@paully21](https://meta.discourse.org/u/paully21)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 10:12오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/7 "2014-10-08T22:12:33Z")
We ended up customizing the template for notifications to include the instructions for private messages.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [10월 8, 2014, 10:15오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/8 "2014-10-08T22:15:30Z")
All my 📧 peeps in one topic. 😭
Keep the feedback coming, email lists are the first item in this bulleted list for a reason
> **[What is Discourse?](https://www.discourse.org/faq)**
>
> Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [5월 4, 2015, 1:58오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/9 "2015-05-04T01:58:06Z")
@techapj added the ability to trigger a new post via URL recently, perhaps it could be extended to trigger a PM as well if the target is a user, and the user has TL1…
---
### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [5월 4, 2015, 12:08오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/10 "2015-05-04T12:08:51Z")
Being one of the proponents of this last year, I think that’d be a suitable (and improved) workaround.
Related thoughts: Is there any way to avoid forcing a user to sign in to Discourse if she has the right token in a URL? Is that a security concern? What about SSO?
---
### Author:  [@techAPJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/techAPJ)
#### Post date: [11월 24, 2015, 2:50오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/11 "2015-11-24T14:50:31Z")
Done via:
> [@Creating pre-filled personal message links](https://meta.discourse.org/t/compose-a-new-pre-filled-private-message-via-url/35984):
>
> bookmark This guide describes how to create a link to start a new personal message with pre-filled information, including best practices. person_raising_hand Required user level: All users Discourse allows you to compose a new personal message with pre-filled information via URL parameters. This can save time and ensure consistency for common messages. Structure of the URL To create a new pre-filled message, format your URL like this: https://discourse.example.com/new-message?username…
---
### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [12월 4, 2025, 11:31오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mailing-list-link-to-private-message/18897/12 "2025-12-04T11:31:41Z")