# Need an ability to move a private message to a public category
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [March 4, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573 "2016-03-04T17:13:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dmitry\_fedyuk](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dmitry_fedyuk)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/1 "2016-03-04T17:13:15Z")
I have a [professional forum](https://mage2.pro), and a lot of visitors try ask their questions in private messages to me, not in a public topic.
If a visitor is not a paying customer, I have no motivation to solve his/her problems in private messages, but in some cases can do so in a public topic, because it could be a useful content for other visitors.
So an ability to move a private topic a public category would be great.
I see a request for the reverse feature: [Flag option “convert into PM”](https://meta.discourse.org/t/flag-option-convert-into-pm/27932), and it is also very useful for a professional forum.
I see also a [partial solution](https://meta.discourse.org/t/move-topic-posts-to-private-conversation/24888/2) (which is originally for the reverse case, but it works in the both directions): create a new public topic, then select and move all the messages from the current private topic.
It solves the problem only partially because I have to create a new topic with a some non-sense topmost post (there is no ability to create a topic without a post), and the new topic will have another author (the original author’s question will only be the second message in the new post).
There is also another partial solution: make a non-sense answer in the private topic, then select all the topic’s posts without the latest and move it to a new topic (the ability to move posts to a new topic is available only if not all topic’s posts are selected).
A good solution would be an ability to just specify a public category for a private topic, as we have in the public topic editing scenario.
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/2 "2016-03-04T17:26:13Z")
When you say “private topic” do you mean a private Message? Or a regular topic in a category that has restricted permissions to be private?
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### Author:  [@dmitry\_fedyuk](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dmitry_fedyuk)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/3 "2016-03-04T17:27:31Z")
I mean a private message.
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/4 "2016-03-04T17:28:59Z")
Agreed, this could be helpful for us. Sometimes people reply to the automatic “site welcome” message that comes from my account, rather than posting their question(s) as a new topic.
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### Author:  [@dmitry\_fedyuk](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dmitry_fedyuk)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/5 "2016-03-04T18:01:06Z")
When somebody asks you a question by repying in an existing private conversation, it is not so big problem, because you can move his question to a new public topic (I have described it above as the second partical solution).
The real problem is when a somebody asks a question in a new private conversation, because there is no a useful way to convert all the conversation into a public topic.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/6 "2016-03-04T23:24:48Z")
Yep we are interested in this feature and it comes up a fair bit. Moving to the long term todos in #releases.
cc @watchmanmonitor I believe?
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### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/7 "2016-03-05T00:54:40Z")
Right, I’m looking for something similar here:
> [@Redirect / convert post from Pending Approval to Direct Message?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/redirect-convert-post-from-pending-approval-to-direct-message/35781):
>
> When dealing with messages to be approved, it’d be very helpful to redirect the post to direct message. This way, we could hash out what the user was really asking for, etc. Is this something we could see added to the Discourse feature list?
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### Author:  [@techAPJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/techAPJ)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/8 "2016-05-03T20:46:26Z")
This feature is now available ☀
> [@Convert a private message to public topic or vice versa](https://meta.discourse.org/t/convert-a-private-message-to-public-topic-or-vice-versa/43635):
>
> I just [pushed](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/acfb5409522d2cdc71d22145c8d627db3e349c33) a commit that adds a button (visible to staff) to admin wrench to make a topic public or private message. Convert public topic to private message: Small action post indicating that public topic is converted to private message: Convert private message to public topic: Small action post indicating that private message is converted to public topic:
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### Author:  [@techAPJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/techAPJ)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-an-ability-to-move-a-private-message-to-a-public-category/40573/9 "2016-05-03T20:47:00Z")