# Muted Default Categories Not Working
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 26, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425 "2017-01-26T22:09:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sentinelrv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sentinelrv)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/1 "2017-01-26T22:09:36Z")
Hey, on our forum here…
> **[Peercointalk](https://talk.peercoin.net/)**
>
> Forum for Peercoin news, discussion and development.
…we have a category called Marketplace. Because we’re in the crypto community we get a lot of advertisements that we’d like to keep contained in this category. We would like to keep the category visible in category view so that users can access and read these threads, however we don’t want the threads from this category appearing in latest view and cluttering up the list. So I read up on how to do this in settings and found this thread…
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-categories-are-too-atomic/16546/15](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-categories-are-too-atomic/16546/15)
I tried adding Marketplace to the muted default categories list and I posted a test thread in that category to see if it worked. Unfortunately, the test thread was still showing up in latest view and on the hybrid page, even though I set it not to. I think there may be a bug for this feature.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2017, 10:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/2 "2017-01-26T22:12:02Z")
You may want to:
> [@Set category notification state historically](https://meta.discourse.org/t/set-category-notification-state-historically/29979):
>
> Currently, when you change the watching/tracking status of a category, it only applies that status to topics created from that point on. If you watch a category and then a week later realize that’s too much noise and decide to unwatch it, you are still watching each individual topic that was created during that week. Manually unwatching each one individually is unintuitive and time-consuming. There should be an option to apply the status to the entire category, not just new topics.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/3 "2017-01-26T22:24:19Z")
This doesn’t seem like a bug to me. Default Muted Categories in Admin \> Settings do not work that way, it defaults the Muted Categories Preference for **new registrations** , not existing.
Instead you have to add that category to the Muted Category preference for all existing users (including your own).
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### Author:  [@Sentinelrv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sentinelrv)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/4 "2017-01-27T02:07:46Z")
> [@cpradio](#):
>
> This doesn’t seem like a bug to me. Default Muted Categories in Admin \> Settings do not work that way, it defaults the Muted Categories Preference for **new registrations** , not existing.
Ok, I didn’t realize it was only for new registrations.
> [@cpradio](#):
>
> Instead you have to add that category to the Muted Category preference for all existing users (including your own).
Is this thread correct that you currently still have to do this manually, as there is nothing in settings yet that allows you to easily change it?
> [@(Obsolete) Set category tracking level defaults historically](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-set-category-tracking-level-defaults-historically/53165):
>
> warning Following the release of Discourse v2.4.0.beta7 (or if you have [this commit](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/b2f682f35eba0cc3f09588356ecf8d1dd824542f)), admins now have the option to set the category tracking levels of all existing users when setting the default category tracking levels in their site settings: Add a category to one of the following site settings, then select the green checkbox button. A modal window will pop up with the following options: play_button The old way using the console
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/5 "2017-01-27T03:04:13Z")
Simply edit the category and suppress it from the homepage via the relevant Boolean field in the settings for this category.
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### Author:  [@Sentinelrv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sentinelrv)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/6 "2017-01-27T04:03:44Z")
Won’t doing that remove it from category view as well, since I’m using that as the homepage? I want it to remain visible from category view to my users so they can see and access it. I only want the threads from that category to be hidden so that they aren’t included in the latest list. The reason for this is because advertisements will be posted there, so it appears spammy if it’s included in latest. I still want people to be able to see and access the advertisements from that category though. Does that make sense?
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### Author:  [@Sentinelrv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sentinelrv)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/7 "2017-01-27T17:42:32Z")
So just to be clear, I would need to carry this out manually by following the instructions posted in the thread I linked above, correct?
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/8 "2017-01-27T17:53:46Z")
Yes, that sounds correct.
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### Author:  [@Sentinelrv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sentinelrv)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 6:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/9 "2017-01-27T18:04:13Z")
Thanks.
I also noticed that the setting for opening links in a new tab works in a similar way and also only applies to new user accounts. Is there anything comparable that I can do to change the user preferences for all existing users so that existing accounts are all set to open external links in a new tab? My forum was recently converted over from SMF, so nobody has really gotten a chance to personalize any settings, so I think this change is fine to make.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/10 "2017-01-27T18:27:21Z")
Yes, depending on the number of users, this may not be the best approach, but you can use
```plaintext
./launcher enter app
rails c
UserOption.update_all(external_links_in_new_tab: true)
```
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2019, 7:31am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/11 "2019-04-25T07:31:04Z")
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2019, 8:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/muted-default-categories-not-working/56425/12 "2019-04-25T08:15:11Z")