Sending messages to all users on a Discourse site

[Discourse]

This guide explains how to send a private message or email to all users on your Discourse site, including using an external email service or creating an Announcements category.

Required user level: Administrator

While Discourse is not designed as an email sending service, there are methods to contact all your site’s users when necessary. This guide will explore two approaches: using an external email service and creating an Announcements category within Discourse.

Using an external email service

To send emails from an external service:

1. Export the site’s users file:

   • Navigate to the Admin panel
   • Go to the Users page
   • Click the “Export” link in the header
     
     

2. Wait for the export to complete. You’ll receive an onsite notification when the CSV file is ready for download.

3. Download and open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program.

4. Extract the email addresses from the email column.

5. Upload these email addresses to your chosen email sending service.

6. Compose and send your message using the external service.

Creating an Announcements category

As an alternative to external email services, you can create a protected Announcements category within Discourse:

1. Create a new category called “Announcements” (or a name of your choice).

2. Configure the category permissions:

   • Restrict topic creation to a select group (e.g., site staff)
   • This prevents spam and ensures only authorized users can post announcements
     
     

3. Configure the category to be watched by all users:

   • Go to your site settings
   • Find the default categories watching first post setting
   • Add your new Announcements category to this setting
     
     

4. Apply changes historically:

   • After saving the setting, you’ll be asked if you want to apply changes historically
   • Select “Yes” to ensure all existing users are included
     
     

5. Create new topics in this category to send notifications:

   • Active users will receive onsite notifications
   • Inactive users will receive emails (based on their notification settings)

Note that only new topics will trigger notifications or emails. Replies in the category won’t generate notifications unless users are specifically watching the topic.

FAQs

Q: Can I track how many emails have been read or who has read them?
A: Discourse doesn’t provide built-in tracking for email opens. For self-hosted Discourse sites, it might be possible to track email opening through your email sending service, but this functionality is not native to Discourse.

Q: Will users receive notifications for every post in the Announcements category?
A: No, users will only receive notifications for new topics in the category. Replies to existing topics won’t generate notifications unless the user is specifically watching that topic.

Last edited by @hugh 2024-08-06T06:55:06Z

Last checked by @hugh 2024-08-06T06:55:11Z

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[pHneutre]

This is great, thanks. I suppose there isn’t a way to know how many emails have been read (let alone who)?

[simon]

Discourse doesn’t provide any way of tracking whether or not emails have been opened. If your Discourse site is self hosted, it might be technically possible to track email opening through the email sending service that you use to deliver the emails.

[thomasnarosy (Thomas Nárosy)]

Unfortunately, the images of this short tutorials are gone. Would it be possible to recreate them? Thanks.

[Moin]

I added this topic in Missing images at Meta.discourse.org
You can find the images at Send a personal message or email to all users on a Discourse site - admins - Discourse Meta until someone adds them back in.