# Way to find parent post (not list of all ancestors scrolled to the top of the list)

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/way-to-find-parent-post-not-list-of-all-ancestors-scrolled-to-the-top-of-the-list/342965>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [December 17, 2024, 6:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/way-to-find-parent-post-not-list-of-all-ancestors-scrolled-to-the-top-of-the-list/342965 "2024-12-17T18:27:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![curi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@curi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/curi)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2024, 6:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/way-to-find-parent-post-not-list-of-all-ancestors-scrolled-to-the-top-of-the-list/342965/1 "2024-12-17T18:27:14Z")

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I’d like a quick way to find the parent of a post. When you click the little icon to expand what’s being replied to, you sometimes get a dozen posts and get scrolled all the way up to the top of them (which is rarely what I want). I’d really like a reliable way to find and view the single, direct parent post (and then from there, a way to find its parent, and so on, one by one, as desired). I like and frequently use the “parent” links on Reddit and Hacker News, which accomplish this.

When you expand the ancestors, just scrolling you up to the start of the parent post, instead of the start of the oldest ancestor, would help. But it wouldn’t be a perfect solution because when you read the parent, and then want its parent, you’d have to scroll up through two posts to find the right place, and if they’re long and contain section headers you might miss the spot if going quickly. It’d be better if the software could take you to the right spot itself.

My most common use case for this is when people reply without using any quotations. If it’s a busy topic with multiple new posts since their last post, then I usually need to see one parent post to figure out what they’re talking about, but I usually don’t need to see any older ancestor posts.

**EDIT: If you’re having issues with this, look at the “max reply history” setting. The default of 1 will solve the majority of this problem (my forum had it at 5 and I forgot the setting existed).**

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