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# What happens to a member's Discourse account when you delete them
- URL: https://www.magicpages.co/help/community/deleted-members-and-discourse/
- Published: 2026-10-15T06:57:08.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-15T06:57:08.000Z
- Description: When you delete a member in Ghost, we suspend, anonymize or delete their Discourse account, or leave it alone. What each choice does, and the safety check for many deletions at once.
- Author: Jannis Fedoruk-Betschki
- Tags: Help Center & Guides, Community

When you delete a member in Ghost, their forum account doesn't disappear on its own. You choose what happens to it under **When a member is deleted in Ghost**, in the form behind **Edit settings** on the **Discourse** tab.

## The four choices

| Choice                                    | What happens                                                                                                  | Can it be undone?                            |
| ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| **Suspend their forum account** (default) | They can't sign in or post. Their posts stay on the forum, and Discourse shows the reason "Deleted in Ghost". | Yes, you can lift a suspension in Discourse. |
| **Anonymize their forum account**         | Their posts stay on the forum, without their name or email.                                                   | No.                                          |
| **Delete their forum account and posts**  | Their account and everything they posted leave the forum.                                                     | No.                                          |
| **Do nothing**                            | Their forum account and posts stay as they are.                                                               | Nothing to undo.                             |

Whatever you choose, someone you've deleted in Ghost can't sign in to the forum through your site any more, because they're no longer a member.

If someone asks you to erase their data, anonymizing or deleting covers the forum too. Suspending keeps their name and email in Discourse.

## When it happens

We notice a deleted member within a few minutes and apply the choice that's set at that moment. Changing it later doesn't touch accounts we've already handled.

It covers forum accounts of members who've signed in through your site. We leave alone any forum account that was never used with your site's sign-in.

Discourse doesn't let us suspend, anonymize or delete its admins and moderators, so their accounts stay as they are.

## Many deletions at once

If a lot of members go missing at once, we leave their forum accounts alone. That's more than five members and more than a tenth of everyone who has signed in to the forum through your site, or all of them at once.

A drop that big is more often a problem reading your site's data than a real clean-up, and a deleted forum account can't come back.

The **Discourse** tab then says your forum needs attention. Members can still sign in, but group, name and email updates pause for everyone until we've looked at it. Testing the connection won't clear it.

Email [help@magicpages.co](mailto:help@magicpages.co) and tell us whether you meant to delete those members. If you did, we apply your choice to their forum accounts. If you didn't, we leave the accounts alone and clear the warning. Either way, updates start again.