Recover a user who was deleted as a spammer

[Discourse]

This guide explains how to recover users and their content after they were mistakenly deleted as spammers.

Required user level: Administrator

When a user is mistakenly flagged as a spammer and deleted, they are automatically blocked from signing up again based on their email address and IP address. Here’s how to restore access and recover their content.

Finding the deleted user’s information

1. Go to Admin > Logs > Staff Action Logs
2. Search for confirm spam and delete user as the action type
3. Review the time and date the user was deleted

Removing signup blocks

Unblock the email address

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Users > Screened Emails
2. Locate the blocked email address using the deletion date noted earlier
3. Click “Allow” to remove the email block

IP address block

1. Go to Admin > Settings > Users > Screened IPs
2. Find the matching IP address from the screened emails list
3. Click the trash can icon to delete the IP block
   Do not click “Allow” for IP addresses, only delete the record

Restoring access

After removing the blocks, the user can register a new account using:

• Their previous email address
• Their previous username

The original account cannot be recovered, but a new account can be created with the same details.

Reassigning and recovering posts

When a user is deleted as a spammer, their posts are:

• Marked as deleted
• Left without an author

To restore these posts:

1. Click on the topic or post hyperlink shown in the staff action logs
2. Look for posts marked as deleted (admins can see these)
3. Scroll to the bottom of the topic or post and click on the counter-clockwise arrow

4. Click the wrench icon
5. Change the ownership to the user’s new account
6. Recover the posts to make them visible again

Last edited by @jessii 2024-12-05T04:27:35Z

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