# Responding to "solved" topics
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** solved
**Created:** [May 18, 2017, 7:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927 "2017-05-18T07:28:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sujan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sujan)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 7:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/1 "2017-05-18T07:28:20Z")
We have people finding old posts via Google that were solved ages ago. Because they think they have the same problem, they just post their own dump on the bottom and hope for answers. Most regular users tend to ignore “solved” topics though - so this doesn’t end in happy users 😕
Might it be useful to add some kind of information when posting into a solved topic that mentions this somehow?
> You are responding to a topic that was already marked as “solved”.
> You are more likely to get a new set of eyes on your problem by creating a new topic.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 8:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/2 "2017-05-18T08:56:48Z")
I suggest closing topics if they are definitively solved and further responses make no sense.
You can also set the category preferences so that topics in that category auto-close (x) days after the first post, or (x) days after the last reply, if that works better for you.
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### Author:  [@uwe\_keim](https://meta.discourse.org/u/uwe_keim)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 11:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/3 "2017-05-18T11:06:28Z")
Auto-close (x) days after being marked as solved?
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 11:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/4 "2017-05-18T11:17:28Z")
> [@uwe\_keim](#):
>
> Auto-close (x) days after being marked as solved?
That’s not a feature at the moment, but looks like it’s #pr-welcome
> [@Automatically close solved topics after N hours](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-close-solved-topics-after-n-hours/58383):
>
> My apologies if it was mentioned already But it will be great if we could set autoclose after X hours for resolved topics.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/5 "2017-05-18T19:30:24Z")
I think in practice “auto close after solved” would be very very _VERY_ similar to auto close (x) days after last reply.
The only reason not to do that, is if the solution topics are mixed into a category that has non-solution based topics.
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### Author:  [@Sean\_R](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sean_R)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/6 "2017-05-18T19:51:37Z")
I would love to be able to use the action of “Marked as Solved” to trigger this timer. We use it for Q&A and for Problem resolution.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/7 "2017-05-19T01:22:57Z")
Sort of, you get to close stuff faster if you have auto close after solved, cause you would likely set timer a lot shorter.
For example, in our #Support category I would set:
“auto close after last reply” to 2 months
“auto close after solved” to 2 days
You want to give people a chance to necro a reply to a support question to a degree, but once it is solved, you want to close it pretty quickly.
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### Author:  [@lindsey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lindsey)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/responding-to-solved-topics/62927/8 "2025-10-27T19:48:25Z")
I believe the problem here is addressed by the `solved topics auto close hours` setting added here: [Automatically close solved topics after N hours](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatically-close-solved-topics-after-n-hours/58383/)