Not sure if this is by design but it seems illogical to me. If a user is watching a certain tag or category they are notified when staff create an unlisted topic in that category.* This defeats the point of having an ‘unlisted’ topic. I understand that one can access unlisted topics with a link but…

i don’t believe this is expected behavior, and i reproduced this on my forum. use a test user account to set a category to watching use a staff account to create a new topic in that category and toggle it as unlisted before posting. login as the test user and notification badge and link appears i…

Wow, that’s not optimal! :grimacing: Thanks for the report and repro, @ondrej and @Lilly ! :rainbow::star2:

Oh no, seems like this would be a problem if staff thought creating an unlisted post in general category would be invisible, but is not! Checked and same thing happened when I tried this too. Can understand why no one noticed this before, after all there is a separate locked category that can be us…

[image] anon65426961: Unlisted threads aren’t really at all secure Since topic IDs are sequential, a user could theoretically look for gaps in topic lists where a specific topic ID is missing, then discover unlisted topics that way (assuming that topics in private categories and personal mess…

Unlisted topics were never intended to be secure. They’re intended to be “lightweight hidden”.

Correct, this is behavior runs against the usefulness of unlisted topics, and is a valid bug. But it is not a security concern. :+1: I use unlisted pages for leaving people quick links and will delete it a day later. Or as part of an augmented reality game… This bug is really dramatic for my use c…

Would this be a duplicate of this topic? [image] Newly-created "unlisted" Topics send "new topic" Notifications feature Perhaps the title is rather verbose, but I am assuming that this is unintended. As a staff member (or a TL4 user), I can create topics as unlisted by def…

Looks like, and here’s another one! [image] Fresh unlisted topics get emailed to 'watch first post' support I think this is a bug related to behaviour that others have noted… Situation: Have global notifications category that only admin/management can post in, set every …

I think I found yet another duplicate. [image] Watching categories notifies you of unlisted topics Support [image] So I am watching every category and I am notified of an unlisted category. Unlisted topics are not supposed to be shown to the public, but it is in this case…

This looks to be when the feature was first added in July 2016 by Alan Tan @tgxworld : [image] Unlisted topics: Making them more useful feature Ability to toggle a topic unlisted has been added to the gear icon and is only available when creating a new topic. [image]

Users notified of unlisted topic creation

Support

anon65426961 July 18, 2023, 2:09am 13

This looks to be when the feature was first added in July 2016 by Alan Tan @tgxworld:

Topic		Replies	Views
Newly-created "unlisted" Topics send "new topic" Notifications Bug unlisting	14	1633	August 7, 2025
Posting new topic as unlisted still triggers email notifications Feature unlisting	2	93	October 28, 2025
Discourse doesn't send notifications after an unlisted topic is listed Support notifications , unlisting	3	344	October 7, 2023
Unlisted topic is visible in notification popup if a category is watched? Support unlisting	10	2246	May 30, 2017
Unlisted topics notify users if their posts are linked Bug pr-welcome , unlisting	11	2094	November 26, 2018

Users notified of unlisted topic creation

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