How to move a reply to another topic in phpBB

Even though you may set site rules for your forums specifying the rules of conduct about posting, there will always be instances where you will need to move posts. It may be that someone replied to the wrong topic, or their reply may simply fit another topic better than the one it currently in. As an Administrator or a Moderator, you have the ability to move the reply to the right topic.

Moving replies to another topic in phpBB 3.0

  1. Log into the website. You do not need to enter the MCP or ACP just yet.
  2. You should now be logged in and at the main page of the forum, this is known as the Board Index. If you are in your MCP or ACP, scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see a link next to a house icon entitled Board Index. Click that to go to the main forum area. Once you are on the Board Index, click on the Forum you want to enter. In our example, we are going to enter the Your first forum forum.
    click target forum
  3. This brings you to a page that has the list of topics for the forum. Click on the particular topic you need to enter. Continuing our example, we click on the first topic on the page, New smartphone! How do I use it?. We know that a user named Bob has replied to his own topic by mistake instead of another user’s topic.
  4. You are now at the level where you will see all the reply posts related to the topic. The original topic post is at the top, with the reply posts listed underneath in the order they were made. Now that we have navigated to the reply level you have the ability to moderate them. To do so, click on the link entitled [ Moderator Control Panel ] to enter the MCP.
  5. Once in the MCP, you should already be on the Main tab (found at the top of the page) and the left sidebar tab should be set to View Topic. Additionally, you should see the list of all posts for that topic. Also take a look at the tabs in the upper right corner. Click on the Move Posts tab.

    From here you will see the same list of posts, but the header portion of the tab now has additional fields to help you move your post. Locate the post you want to remove and click the checkbox on the right hand side. You can select more than one post in this manner if you need to and the move will move them all at once.
    select original topic

  6. At the top of the page is a field entitled Destination topic identification number where you will enter the ID of the topic to which you want to move the reply. If you do not know what the ID number is, simply click the link named Select Topic. You will be introduced to a list of the topics.

    At the beginning of each topic is a link entitled [Select for merge]. Click on that link for your destination topic. This will return you to the previous screen and you will see that topics ID in the field. Be sure the topic you want to move still has it’s checkbox marked. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Move Posts from the dropdown. To initiate themove, click on the Submit button right next to the dropdown.
    select move posts click submit

  7. You are led to a confirmation page asking to confirm the reply move to the destination topic. Click on the Yes button to continue. Your post will be moved to the new topic and you will receive a success message. Below is a before and after screenshot of the reply in its original topic and then in the new topic.

    BeforeAfter
    post before move initiated

    post move complete

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