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daniel.boon
daniel.boon
Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Oct 14, 2020 4:20 PM UTC

How To Automatically Close Inactive Topics

  • Apr 24, 2025 1:25 PM UTC
  • 21 replies
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This article was edited on the 24th of April 2025.

 

Closing topics that are inactive can help you keep content fresh in the activity streams on the community. In this article, you’ll find out how you can automate the closing of inactive topics.

How to configure the automation rule for closing inactive topics

Note: you must be have the community manager/administrator primary role to configure this rule.

  1. Go to Control > Settings > Automation Rules.
  2. Under ‘Automatically close inactive topics’, turn on the switch.
  3. Configure when you want topics to be closed (the number of days after which a topic has been inactive - i.e. no new replies have been added).
  4. Optionally configure the categories you want this rule to apply to (otherwise, all categories will be considered).
  5. Press save changes.
  6. You’re all set!

⚙️ More details around how the rule works

  • Topics started by users with the following primary role are ignored by this automation rule: Administrator, Community Manager, Moderator and Superuser.
  • If a topic has been closed by the automation rule, and it is reopened by a moderator, the topic will be closed again by the automation rule (this was previously not the case).
  • This automation rule will close all topics regardless of when the rule was activated and of when the topics were created, as long as, of course, the topics belong to the configured categories and are inactive for the set number of days (this was previously not the case).
    If you disable this automation rule and then reactivate it after some time, all topics will still be closed if they match the configured criteria (number of days + belong to category).

      21 replies

      Hiewwaiy
      Hiewwaiy
      Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      Oct 15, 2020 6:43 AM UTC

      Is there a reason why you can't close topics started by admins? 

      We post a lot of support content, that do not need to be displayed in the activity stream, so it would have been great if there was an option to close topics started by us …. 

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      Gr Hiewwaiy
        daniel.boon
        daniel.boonAuthor
        Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
        Oct 15, 2020 10:56 AM UTC

        Is there a reason why you can't close topics started by admins? 

        We post a lot of support content, that do not need to be displayed in the activity stream, so it would have been great if there was an option to close topics started by us …. 

        Thanks for your feedback/question @Hiewwaiy! We chose not to automatically close topics started by admins since the kind of content an admin posts (e.g. articles/product updates) tend to have their own workflow, separate from the end-user content lifecycle.

        Re: your second point -> would you prefer for this support content to simply not appear in the activity stream at all, even when it’s first published?

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        inSided product alumnus
        Hiewwaiy
        Hiewwaiy
        Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
        Oct 15, 2020 11:54 AM UTC

        Hi @daniel.boon 

         

        Would you prefer for this support content to simply not appear in the activity stream at all, even when it’s first published? 


        Yes that is exactly what we want! :grin:  :point_down_tone2:  

         

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        Gr Hiewwaiy
          Suvi Lehtovaara
          Suvi Lehtovaara
          Helper ⭐️⭐️
          Oct 15, 2020 12:42 PM UTC

          @daniel.boon I’ve just applied this setting to our community. How long will it take for replying to inactive topics to be disabled?

          And a follow-up idea on this one:

          We decided that app. 1,5 years of inactivity is, for us, a good time to auto-close a topic. But, we would like to keep ideas open for a longer time, ‘cause some things just take longer :sweat_smile::see_no_evil:  Have you been considering this?

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          https://yhteiso.elisa.fi/
          daniel.boon
          daniel.boonAuthor
          Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
          Oct 16, 2020 3:50 PM UTC

          Hey @Suvi Lehtovaara  - thanks for your question! This rule is not applied retroactively to existing topics - i.e. it only applies to topics created after you set up the rule.

          That’s an interesting idea - not something we considered when building it, but I agree it makes sense for ideas in particular :)

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          inSided product alumnus
          Suvi Lehtovaara
          Suvi Lehtovaara
          Helper ⭐️⭐️
          Oct 20, 2020 6:23 AM UTC

          Hey @Suvi Lehtovaara  - thanks for your question! This rule is not applied retroactively to existing topics - i.e. it only applies to topics created after you set up the rule.

          Well, that’s disappointing @daniel.boon.For us as an older community it is a real problem that users comment on older topics. Is the best practise to mass-close older topics?

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          https://yhteiso.elisa.fi/
          daniel.boon
          daniel.boonAuthor
          Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
          Oct 20, 2020 7:25 AM UTC

          @Suvi Lehtovaara Sorry to hear that & thanks for the feedback - I can understand that if you’ve got a lot of topics that match the criteria it would be simpler to mass close them immediately.

          I think whether you should mass-close older topics depends a little on the context of your community. It’s possible to use the moderation overview for the purpose of closing older topics in bulk.

          I found this topic with a couple of ideas to consider when closing older topics.

           

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          inSided product alumnus
          David T-Mobile
          David T-Mobile
          Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
          Oct 29, 2020 8:47 AM UTC

          Hi @daniel.boon or colleague,

          I like this new feature, but is there a way to edit the message for these automatically closed topics? It would be great to be able to add something like ‘This topic has been automatically closed. due to the inactivity of this topic. Check our FAQ or open a new topic’, to prevent people from leaving our Community and not returning..

          Thanks in advance! :v:

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            daniel.boon
            daniel.boonAuthor
            Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
            Oct 29, 2020 11:39 AM UTC

            Hi @daniel.boon or colleague,

            I like this new feature, but is there a way to edit the message for these automatically closed topics? It would be great to be able to add something like ‘This topic has been automatically closed. due to the inactivity of this topic. Check our FAQ or open a new topic’, to prevent people from leaving our Community and not returning..

            Thanks in advance! :v:

            Hey @David T-Mobile thanks for your question!

            Currently there’s no specific message for when a topic has been closed automatically vs by a moderator, so this isn’t possible.

            I believe you could add this part (‘Check our FAQ or open a new topic’) to the generic phrase for any closed topic, however (e.g. This topic has been closed for comments. <a href="https://community.insided.com/topic/new">Create a new topic</a>).

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            inSided product alumnus
              David T-Mobile
              David T-Mobile
              Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
              Nov 5, 2020 9:42 AM UTC

              Thanks for the response Daniel, much appreciated! 

              That would be an option, but that would also mean that the same message would be displayed when we closed a topic for rude behavior or for spamming the same question over and over. If anything, we don't want those people to start new topics! :grin:

              Hopefully it's something you'd consider for the roadmap, because it would be a convenient option to use. Have a good one!

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