# User watching categories despite not having access

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-watching-categories-despite-not-having-access/102326
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [November 19, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-watching-categories-despite-not-having-access/102326 "2018-11-19T17:47:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 3

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### Author: ![tophee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tophee/32/73406_2.png) [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-watching-categories-despite-not-having-access/102326/3 "2018-11-19T19:03:23Z")

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> [@simon](#):
>
> If you impersonate the user, instead of viewing their profile as an admin, you will not see the private categories in their notification settings. The private categories will not appear for the user unless they are granted access to them.

This is fantastic. So I had misunderstood how the `default categories watching` (etc) settings work. I suspect this could be clarified some place (I’ll point it out when I see the right spot).

Thanks for clarifying. It looks like this solves [this](https://meta.discourse.org/t/force-category-watching-based-on-group-membership-only-once/102254/2) issue for me.

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