This guide explains how to move posts to a new or existing topic, or to a new or existing personal message in Discourse. This feature helps keep discussions on topic and allows for moving public discussions to private support systems.
Required user level: Staff (Administrators and Moderators), Trust level 4 users, or Category Group Moderators
Discourse provides staff members, users with trust level 4, and category group moderators with the ability to move posts from one topic to another. This feature is useful for maintaining focused discussions and transferring public conversations to private support channels when necessary. Here’s how to use this feature effectively.
Moving posts from personal messages is only available to staff members (administrators and moderators). Trust level 4 users and category group moderators cannot move posts from PMs.
Selecting posts to move
- Click the admin wrench icon in the topic you want to move posts from.
- Click the “Select Posts” button.
- Choose the specific posts you want to move by clicking on them.
Choosing the destination for the posts
After selecting the posts, click the “move to” button. A modal window will appear, offering options for moving the posts. The available options depend on whether you are moving posts from a regular topic or a personal message.
Moving from a regular topic
When moving posts from a regular topic, the modal offers up to three options:
- Move to a new topic — available when not all posts are selected and the first selected post is a regular post
- Move to an existing topic — always available
- Move to a new message — only available for administrators
Moving from a personal message
When moving posts from a personal message, the modal offers up to two options:
- Move to a new message — only available for administrators
- Move to an existing message — always available for staff
Moving to a new topic
To create a new topic with the selected posts:
- Enter a title for the new topic.
- Optionally, select a category and add tags.
- Click “Create Topic” to complete the move.
Moving to an existing topic
To move the selected posts to an already existing topic:
- Search for the destination topic by its title or ID in the search box.
- Alternatively, paste the URL of the destination topic into the search box.
- Select the appropriate topic from the search results.
When moving posts to an existing topic, they will be appended to the end of the post stream by default. However, you can check the “preserve chronological order after merging” option to insert the posts at their corresponding chronological positions within the destination topic.
Moving to a new message
To create a new personal message with the selected posts:
- Enter a title for the new message.
- Optionally, add tags to the message.
- Click “Create Message” to complete the move.
Moving to an existing message
This option is available when moving posts from a personal message. To move the selected posts to an existing message:
- Search for the destination message by its title in the search box.
- Select the appropriate message from the search results.
- Optionally, add participants to the destination message.
- Click “Move to Message” to complete the move.
When moving posts to an existing message, you can also check the “preserve chronological order after merging” option, just like when moving to an existing topic.
Post-move notification
After moving the posts, a small action post will be added to the original topic, notifying users about the move:
Important note
It’s not possible to rearrange posts within the same topic using this feature. If you need to change the order of posts in a single topic, you can use a workaround:
- Move the posts to an intermediate topic.
- Then move them back to the original topic.
This process will allow you to change the order of posts within a single topic.
Last edited by @JammyDodger 2024-07-31T08:06:24Z
Last checked by @hugh 2024-07-31T06:19:49Z
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