Managing Threaded Replies in Discussions

After copying a course in Canvas, a banner may appear at the top of the Discussions page that requires attention. The banner allows instructors to enable or disable threaded replies for multiple discussions at once.

Canvas Discussions page showing a banner stating "You have 7 decisions to make" related to disallowing threaded replies. The banner offers a "Manage Discussions" button to update discussion settings.

In legacy Canvas discussions, when threaded replies are enabled, students can reply directly to individual posts within a discussion by clicking the Reply link under a specific comment.

A Canvas discussion showing a student post with a visible “Reply” link below the comment, indicating that threaded replies are enabled. This allows users to respond directly to individual posts.

When threaded replies are disabled, the Reply option is removed, and students can only respond to the original post.

A Canvas discussion showing a student post without a “Reply” link below the comment, indicating that threaded replies are disabled. Students can only respond to the original post.

If the banner appears, use the steps below to manage threaded replies:

Click Manage Discussions in the banner to review the threaded reply settings.

Close-up of the "Manage Discussions" button found in the banner to review and update threaded reply settings.

The next page displays a list of discussions.

Canvas "Manage Discussions" page showing a list of discussions with checkboxes, dropdown menus to set threading status, and buttons labeled "Set to Threaded," "Set to Not threaded," and "Confirm."

Use the checkboxes on the left to select the discussions or click Select All to choose all discussions.

Canvas "Manage Discussions" page showing that all discussion checkboxes, including "Select all," are checked.

Click either the Set to Threaded or Set to Not Threaded button found in the upper right to apply the setting in bulk. Alternatively, use the dropdown menu next to each discussion to adjust the setting individually.

Canvas "Manage Discussions" page showing the "Set to Threaded" and "Set to Not threaded" buttons, with one dropdown menu expanded to select "Threaded" or "Not threaded" individually.

After reviewing the selections, click Confirm to save the changes.

Close-up of the "Cancel" and "Confirm" buttons used to finalize threaded reply discussion settings.