Private mode and members-only forums
Let guests see your forums and thread titles, and ask them to log in to read.
Private mode keeps your forum visible to newcomers while the conversations stay for members. Turn it on in Admin › Settings › Features: Private mode: guests must log in to read threads.
What guests see
- Still visible: the forum index, forum lists, stats, Who's Online and thread titles with their starter, reply and view counts.
- Behind a log in: opening a thread shows a Log in to read this thread card. After logging in or joining, guests land straight back on that thread.
- No leaks: search shows guests titles only, never post text or snippets, and the public API, profiles' recent posts, polls, reactions and live updates follow the same rule.
Per forum
The checkbox is a shortcut for the Open threads and read posts row in Admin › Permissions, set to Deny for Guests under Site defaults. Pick a single forum in the grid to make it differ, for example one public welcome forum on an otherwise private site. Forums guests can't read show a Log in to read chip in the forum tree.
To hide a forum from guests completely, titles included, deny See the forum and its thread titles for Guests instead.
Search engines and Discord
- Thread pages guests can't read are marked noindex and left out of the sitemap, so post text stays off the open web. Your index and forum pages stay listed.
- The Discord bridge and webhooks only carry posts from forums guests can read.