Set up a category ONLY for specific Users

Support
1

I would like to have a group of users only be able to post/view/interact in a certain category. How do I set this up please?

2

You can set this up easily using category permissions. Here’s how:

1. Create a group (if you don’t already have one):

  • Go to your Admin → Groups
  • Click “New Group”, give it a name, and add the users who should have access.

2. Create or edit the category:

  • Go to Categories
  • Either create a new category or edit an existing one.

3. Set the permissions:

  • In the category settings, scroll to the Security section.
  • Remove the default everyone (and any other groups you don’t want).
  • Add your specific group.
  • Assign the permission level you want:
    • See → allow them to view the category
    • Reply → allow replies
    • Create → allow new topics

4. Save your changes.

That’s it — now only the users in that group can see or interact with the category. Other users won’t even see it listed.

3

I think the AI you asked may have missed the nuance of also not letting these particular users see any of the other categories. :slight_smile:

Currently, there isn’t an easy way to do that. You’d need to put everyone else into a group and adjust your existing categories to be visible to them (thereby excluding this special ‘limited-access’ group), and then have a category set up which includes the special group.

I think the Discourse Dynamic Groups plugin may make the first part easier to manage.

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4

Thanks. I created a group and added a user.

I went to Admin dashboard, but there’s no “categories” section.

I’m able to get into categories from my home page and there I can create a new category.

I went to permissions, and I removed “everyone” but in the dropdown the new category I created is not showing up to be selected…??

5

So I would need to take all my existing users who currently can see pretty much everything and put them in a group that excludes the new group/category and then somehow assign certain users I want to add to the new category only to that?

6

category or group? You need to search for the group you created.

7

There is no way to exclude users from seeing something. You can only configure who is allowed to see something.

So you need to change the settings of all categories to show most of them to a group where your new group of users is not a member of, and then you add the other group only to their category.

Depending on why you want this, muting most categories for the group of users could work. That simplifies the interface, but of course, it doesn’t prevent access. So it’s not helpful in cases where you want information not to be available for them.

3 Likes
8

I should check I’ve understood the request properly. :slight_smile:

By this, do you mean that you want those users to only see this one category (and no others), and all your other users can see everything else?

9

Yes sorry group. I can’t see the new group on the drop down to assign to the new category.

10

Did you reload the site between creating the group and trying to edit the category settings?

1 Like