Hi, I just wanted to confirm the default permissions behaviour in Discourse. Can moderators delete user accounts, or is that restricted to admins only? I just wanted to confirm there are no edge cases (for example users with zero posts). We are running Discourse 2026.3.0-latest with only officia…

Thanks - category moderators ended up being the right solution for my use case. On my forum I set this up as follows: I created a group @mods. I enabled the site setting enable category group moderation. I assigned that group as the moderator group for each category. This gives the moderators th…

Why not try? :slight_smile: Also see: [image] Deleting a user account :person_raising_hand: Required user level: Administrator or Moderator

Thanks - I tested this on my own forum and confirmed that moderators can delete users. For my use case I would prefer that only admins can delete accounts. Is there a recommended way to prevent moderators from deleting (or anonymising) users (for example a site setting, theme component, or plugin)…

Is that the only moderator ability you’d want to limit? Or would it make sense to use Category Moderators? Those permissions stop short of delete user and a few other things.

this table shows everything moderators and other trust levels can do [image] Trust Level Permissions Reference Using Discourse bookmark This reference aims to be a comprehensive list of Discourse features, marked by Trust Level, and including the relevant admi…

Sweet! Thanks for sharing your resolution. I believe that’s largely what was done for us new volunteer mods here.

What can moderators do to users?

Support

NateDhaliwal (Nate Dhaliwal) March 11, 2026, 7:29am 2

Why not try?

Also see:

Topic		Replies	Views
Assigning Category Moderator Role Without Admin Access Support	1	71	April 15, 2025
Is there a way to not let moderators delete members? Support	7	778	December 2, 2022
Option for TL4 to delete posts/topics Support	2	858	August 1, 2021
How to Modify Moderator Permissions and Remove Discourse Attribution Support	3	297	October 1, 2024
How i can manage roles for moderators and administrators? Support	4	1248	June 12, 2022

What can moderators do to users?

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