Admins viewing Private messages

[KevC]

Yes, but the point was that you could view PMs for a user without database access

Except that you said

Resetting the password will be more difficult. You would have to have database access

Yes it's easy to change someone elses password and log in as them but ultimately it's not much use to you.

By the way, why isn't there an option in Quick Tools to delete all PMs for a user? I assume deleting a user also deletes his PMs, but what if you just want to delete the PMs without resorting to SQL across two tables (phpbb_privmsgs and phpbb_privmsgs_to)?

Why would you need to delete someone else's PMs?

[TptMike]

I suppose some boards have a "no advertising in PMs" rule. delete the PM via phpMyAdmin or install a mod. That's the only way that rule could be enforced.

[KevC]

Just put that person in to a group with no PM ability.

[TptMike]

That would be a consequence to the rule breaking. Still, the phpMyAdmin or Mod would have to be used to find the incriminating evidence. I'm not speaking of what I would do on my personal board... this is just viewing this from outside of the box...

I would just cut off PM's till users got a certain amount of posts on my board.

[Pony99CA]

Yes, but the point was that you could view PMs for a user without database access

Except that you said

Resetting the password will be more difficult. You would have to have database access

I'm aware of what I said. I added that for completeness in case anybody wondered how you would restore the password. The main point was still that an admin could view a user's PMs without database access.

Yes it's easy to change someone elses password and log in as them but ultimately it's not much use to you.

Who knows how much use it is? The original poster didn't say why they wanted to know whether it was possible to view others' PMs. Maybe I'm an admin of a stock trading forum where a user has a good record in the market, so I think looking at that user's PMs would give me an advantage.

I was just pointing out that it could be done (and without database access if the admin is willing to send an E-mail to the user whose PMs he checked; heck, the admin could just do nothing and let the user think he'd forgotten the password and force him to use the password reset feature). I'm not sure why you're being so dismissive of the point, especially as nobody had raised it here.

By the way, why isn't there an option in Quick Tools to delete all PMs for a user? I assume deleting a user also deletes his PMs, but what if you just want to delete the PMs without resorting to SQL across two tables (phpbb_privmsgs and phpbb_privmsgs_to)?

Why would you need to delete someone else's PMs?

Maybe somebody is cleaning up space used by inactive users. If somebody hasn't logged in for a few years, they probably don't need their PMs. You might not want to delete the user, but they could have a full PM box.

Or, as TptMike suggested, what if somebody was advertising? Yes, you could put them in a group with no PM ability, but that wouldn't delete all of the advertising PMs in the boxes.

Steve

[I've seen it all]

As surprising as it may seem, private messages are supposed to be private. If you really want to automate the snooping, write a script that queries the SQL database and returns a list of PMs, with the sender's and the recipient's names..

[Mealybug]

Won't the user receive an email saying someone has tried to change their password if you change it as admin to log into their account?

[Mick]

You do realise this topic is ten years old? Lot’s of stuff has changed since then you should start a fresh topic.

[stevemaury]

Won't the user receive an email saying someone has tried to change their password if you change it as admin to log into their account?

Just change their email address at the same time.