Performing bulk actions as a moderator

[Discourse]

This reference guide describes the types of bulk actions available for moderators and site admins to perform on topics through the Discourse UI.

Required user level: Moderator or Administrator

Bulk actions in Discourse allow you to perform operations on multiple topics simultaneously. These actions are particularly useful when managing or moderating a large number of topics.

Selecting topics for bulk actions

To perform bulk actions:

1. Click the hamburger menu icon next to any list of “Topics”.
2. Use the checkboxes that appear to the left of topics to select them.
3. Optionally, use the Select All button to select all topics in your current view, or Clear All to deselect all topics.

The Select All button selects all topics from your current view, not necessarily all topics on the site.

To perform bulk actions on all topics within a specific category or tag, first navigate to that category or tag, then click “Select All”.

Accessing the bulk actions menu

Once you’ve selected the topics:

Click the gear wheel icon () to open the bulk actions menu.

Before performing any bulk actions, ensure you’ve selected the intended number of topics.

Available bulk actions

Here are the actions you can perform through this menu:

1. Set Category: Move all selected topics to a different category.

2. Close Topics: Mark all selected topics as Closed.

3. Archive Topics: Mark all selected topics as Archived.

4. Notifications: Set your personal notification level (watching, tracking, normal, muted) for all selected topics. This does not impact the notification level for other users.

5. Unlist Topics: Mark all selected topics as Unlisted.

6. Reset Bump Dates: Reset the Bump Date for all selected topics.

7. Replace Tags: Replace all existing tags on selected topics with new tags.

8. Append Tags: Add additional tags to selected topics while keeping existing tags.

9. Remove All Tags: Remove all tags from selected topics.

10. Delete Topics: Soft-delete all selected topics.
    There’s no bulk action to undelete topics, so use this action with care.

11. Assign Topics: (Requires Discourse Assign) Assign all selected topics to an individual user.

12. Unassign Topics: (Requires Discourse Assign) Unassign any selected topics that are currently assigned to users.

Troubleshooting

If the gear icon for bulk actions doesn’t appear after selecting topics:

1. Try using safe mode to check if a theme or theme component is interfering.
2. Ensure you have the necessary permissions (moderator or admin) to perform bulk actions.

Additional resources

• Administrative Bulk Operations
• What be happen to post or topic when we delete it?

Last edited by @hugh 2024-07-31T00:03:17Z

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[wellbing-go]

That is very helpful to me.

[pixelDust]

This is excellent, but do you know why the Gear icon (that allows you to actually perform functions on selected topics) wouldn’t show up?

At first I thought this could be a problem with our site’s CSS, but even when I turn off all page styles or dig through the source code, I see no editing options to speak of. Is there an admin setting we need to change? We just upgraded (to 3.2.0.beta1-dev) but the problem persists

[JammyDodger]

It should show up as soon as you select at least one topic.

If it doesn’t, you could try safe mode and see if it’s a stray theme or theme component interfering.

[hello-smile6 (9pfs)]

@SaraDev

Set Category: Moves all topics to a different category.

Can TL3 users use that bulk action?

[JammyDodger]

I don’t believe TL3 have the bulk action button, so they would not.