# Mark specific posts as "read" through the API?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/mark-specific-posts-as-read-through-the-api/198701
**Category:** Development
**Tags:** rest-api
**Created:** [July 30, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mark-specific-posts-as-read-through-the-api/198701 "2021-07-30T14:53:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@vagosduke](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vagosduke)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mark-specific-posts-as-read-through-the-api/198701/1 "2021-07-30T14:53:40Z")
Hello,
I’m pulling posts through the discourse API. I’m using python for that. The request calls the following code (which makes a GET request essentially) and returns the .json similar to [this post](https://meta.discourse.org/t/198701.json)
```plaintext
def topic_by_id(self, topic_id, **kwargs):
return self._get("/t/{0}.json".format(topic_id), **kwargs)
```
The posts returned have a `'read'` flag. The posts I send are read=True, but for the posts I receive they are all marked as read=False, unless I actively log in to Discourse and read them.
Is there a way to mark a specific post as read through the API given a post\_id? I’ve been looking into pydiscourse and they offer a method to add reading-time which supposedly also makes a post “read”, but no matter how much read-time I “add” the .json endpoint returns as false. I don’t care about reading “gaps” as long as I can mark specific post ids
```plaintext
def topic_timings(self, topic_id, time, timings={}, **kwargs):
"""
Set time spent reading a post
A side effect of this is to mark the post as read
Args:
topic_id: { post_number: ms }
time: overall time for the topic (in what unit????)
timings:
"""
kwargs["topic_id"] = topic_id
kwargs["topic_time"] = time
for post_num, timing in timings.items():
kwargs["timings[{0}]".format(post_num)] = timing
return self._post("/topics/timings", **kwargs)
```
Similar functionality has already been achieved for notifications using the `notifications/mark-read` endpoint
```plaintext
def mark_read(self, notification_id):
return self._put('/notifications/mark-read.json', id=notification_id)
```
Also, another valid workaround is if it’s possible to mark a whole topic (all posts within) as read
Any help is welcome!
EDIT: it is required that this also functions for private-messages
---
### Author:  [@vagosduke](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vagosduke)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2021, 3:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mark-specific-posts-as-read-through-the-api/198701/2 "2021-07-30T15:16:40Z")
Well, I’ve reverse-engineered it with the browser.
the `topic_timings()` must be called using post index in the `timings={}` argument instead of the post ID.
I guess that’s quite acceptable workaround, though I’d like to have a post-id-based method because it’s not very easy to infer index from ids (will need to fetch the actual topic first)
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/mark-specific-posts-as-read-through-the-api/198701/3 "2021-07-30T15:53:39Z")
I don’t know if this will help, but I believe there is a `/p/` route.