Simple, fast, easy to use, and fun... these are words commonly used to describe ProBoards' free forum hosting service. Whether you're new to message boards or an experienced moderator, we invite you to review our features and start your new ProBoards forum today.

Creating a new forum takes less than 30 seconds and immediately after that you can begin inviting your friends and colleagues to browse your new forum and start discussing topics! If you have questions or need help, our Support Forum community is the best in the business. Join the over 16 million monthly visitors on the Internet's largest, most enjoyed free forum hosting service.

ProBoards Features

  • Free — What else needs to be said?
  • Easy to use — Our free forums are easy to use, set up, moderate, administrate, and customize.
  • No Size Limit — With ProBoards, you can create as many categories, boards, members, threads, topics and posts as you like. There's no limit. We like busy forums!
  • Customizable — Create a unique and wondrous place with the best customization tools of any free forum.
  • Mobile App — Android or iPhone; Now members can stay connected when they're on-the-go. Mobile app experience provided by Tapatalk.
  • Simple Admin Tools — With our super simple admin tools, managing a forum has never been easier! You'll like the clean organization of our easy to use admin area with clear language and a simple layout.
  • YouTube Embedding — Now members can share their favorite YouTube clips and embed them directly into discussion posts.
  • Upload Files — Share files with other forum members (music, pictures, documents, etc); Upload attachments directly into topic posts.
  • Best 24/7 support — We're here to help 24/7 with our Getting Started Guide, our detailed Help Guide, and the best support community on the Internet.
  • Remotely Hosted — No software, no installation, no downloads. We'll take care of the technical stuff for you. Just sign up and go!
  • Unlimited Bandwidth — ProBoards doesn't place any limits on bandwidth usage for your community.
  • Scalable — Whether your group is a dozen of your closest friends or millions of people, ProBoards free forums will scale to accommodate any size community!
  • Top Moderation Tools — As forum moderating can often be a delicate job, ProBoards provides effective tools for moderators to discuss issues and render decisions beyond the view of other forum members.
  • Premium Features — We offer additional premium forum options including the ability to use your own custom domain name, remove advertising from your forum, and the ability to change your forum URL.

View the Full Feature List

Full Feature List

The features listed below provide a more complete inventory of ProBoards many user and administrative tools.

Posting

  • Multiple Poll Votes — Optionally you can allow members to vote for multiple choices in a poll.
  • Posting Preview — Before posting your message you can click "Preview" to see how your message will look before it is posted.
  • Vote Changing — Our poll system allows you to specify if votes can be retracted.
  • Flood Control — Our system automatically detects excessive quick posting and throttles the rate at which posts can be made.
  • Formatting Toolbar — We provide an easy to use toolbar for inserting BBCode tags into your posts.
  • Smilies — We offer a variety of image smileys that convert text such as :) into an image version of the smile.
  • Polls — You can add a poll to topics you post that registered members can vote on.
  • Quick Reply — At the bottom of each topic you will find a Quick Reply box that allows you to reply to the topic without needing to navigate to a new page first.
  • Automatic Image Thumbnails — When posting an image attachment, a preview thumbnail is automatically added to your post.
  • BBCode — The BBCode system allows you to stylize your posts adding color, images, and more.
  • Message Icons — When creating a topic you can pick from a variety of icons to display next to your topic.
  • YouTube™ Embedding — Insert videos from YouTube into your posts using our [youtube]Video URL[/youtube] BBCode tag.
  • Attachments — ProBoards forums come with 200MB of free attachment space!
  • Quoting — When replying to a posted message, you can click "quote" to quote the message you are replying to.

Moderation

  • Lock Topics — Locking a topic prevents further posting in it.
  • User Notes — Moderators can store notes about users in the user's profile.
  • Announcement Topics — Announcements are topics that are displayed at the top of every board in your forum.
  • Remove Topics — Removing a topic deletes it from your forum.
  • Split Topics — Using our Move Posts feature you can split a topic from a particular point onwards and move it into a new topic.
  • Sticky Topics — Sticky Topics are topics that stay at the top of a board, usually used for posting rules or important announcements related to a particular board.
  • Move Posts — You can take one (or more) posts from a topic and move them to a new topic or an existing topic.
  • Post Editing — After making a post you can edit it to make any necessary changes.
  • Move Topics — Our Move Topics feature allows you to move a topic from one board to another quickly and easily.
  • Moderators — Moderators are members of your forum that you assign special powers to, such as the ability to lock or delete topics.
  • Per-Board Moderation — We offer a fully functional "Report to Moderator" system for posts.
  • Merge Topics — Using our Move Posts feature you can take all the posts from one topic and merge them into another existing topic.
  • Moderator Toolbar — At the bottom of each topic, moderators will see a toolbar of various moderating options they have access to.

Forum

  • New Topics Viewing — At the top of each page there is a "New Topics" button which will take you to a listing of all the newest topics on your forum.
  • Sub-boards — A sub-board is a board inside of another board. Usually you create sub-boards to better organize discussions about a topic.
  • Post Linking — Each post has a "Link to Post" link at the bottom. When clicked, will take the visitor directly to the post.
  • Social Sharing — You can easily share a topic with your friends using the "share" button at the top of each topic.
  • Recent Post Viewing — You can easily view the most recent posts on your forum by clicking the Recent Posts link in the Info Center.
  • New Topic Indication — Topics with postings you have not read will have a "new" icon next to them.
  • Print Topics — Each topic has a "print" button at the top that takes you to a printer friendly version of the topic.
  • Personal Messaging — Registered members can send direct messages to other users on your forum.
  • Password Protected Boards — Optionally each board can be password protected. Only visitors who know the password will be granted access to the board.
  • Birthday Notification — The bottom of your forum's homepage displays the birthdays for your forum.
  • Topic Participation Listing — By clicking on the number of replies to a topic you can see who has participated in the topic.
  • PM Multiple Recipients — You can send a personal message to multiple recipients by separating their names with a comma. e.g.: sally,tom
  • Report Posts — Members of your forum can report posts to moderators using the "Report to Mod" link at the bottom of each post.
  • Users Online — In the Info Center you will find a list of the users who are currently online at your forum.
  • Active Topic Indication — Topics with a large number of replies gain a special icon indicating an active discussion.
  • Live Chat — We offer the option to add a live java chatroom to your forum, provided by addonChat.
  • News Fader — You can optionally display your forum's news on your homepage through the News Fader feature.
  • Past 24 Hours Users — The Info Center displays the list of users who were active in the last 24 hours on your forum.
  • Categories — Organize your forum's boards into different categories to make it easy to navigate.
  • Calendar — You can optionally enable a calendar on your forum where you can add events.
  • Advanced Forum Search — Search all posts on your forum with advanced options from your forum's search page.
  • Boards — Each board is a place where you can start discussions with other members.
  • Bookmark Topics — You can bookmark topics for easy viewing later.
  • Personal Message Notification — You can opt to receive an email or alert when a new message arrives for you.
  • Forum Jump — At the bottom of your forum you will find a drop down that can help you quickly navigate to other boards on your forum.
  • Info Center — Your forum's homepage comes with an Info Center at the bottom displaying important information about your forum.
  • Forum Statistics — In your Info Center you can view information about the total number of topics, posts, and members.

Administration

  • Maintenance Mode — Your forum can be placed into Maintenance Mode which prevents non-staff from accessing it. This is useful if you want to make many changes or restrict access to your forum.
  • Temporary Bans — Ban a member for a set amount of time by specifying a time length for a ban.
  • Email Banning — Ban registered members with a particular email address from accessing your forum.
  • Security Log — Our security log shows you a listing of important actions performed by your moderators and users.
  • Censored Words — Using our censored words system you can change one word into another on your forum.
  • Category Management — Easily create, modify, or delete categories.
  • Mass E-Mail — Send an email to all members of your forum.
  • Custom Powers for Groups — Allocate different moderator powers to different user groups.
  • Ranks — Specify different ranks for members based on their post count. Ranks are displayed underneath the user's name.
  • Forum Color Management — Easily change your forum colors.
  • Custom Images — Customize all of the images on your forum in one place.
  • Warning System — To easily keep track of problem members you can increase their warning level.
  • Custom HTML/JavaScript/CSS — Our "Headers and Footers" section allows you to enter custom HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
  • Board Management — Create, modify, or delete boards from your forum's Administration Panel.
  • Custom Group Colors — Each user group can be set to a particular color.
  • Reserved Names — Prevent users from using certain names in their username or display name on your forum.
  • Mass Personal Messaging — Quickly send a message to all the members of your forum.
  • User Group Management — Create and customize different user groups.
  • Username Banning — Ban a single user from your forum based on their username.
  • Member Search — Search members of your forum based on a variety of options including IP and email.
  • User IP Logging — When posts are made by a user, their IP address is logged in the post.
  • IP Banning — Ban visitors to your forum based on their IP address.
  • Attachment Management — View and remove attachments from all posts in one place.
  • Permanent Bans — You can ban members from your forum to prevent them from coming back.
  • Skins — Create different skins to give your forum different unique looks.
  • Forum Pruning — Remove old posts from your forum through our easy interface.

Paid Features

  • Forum URL Change — For a one time fee you can change your forum URL. Full details can be found in your forum's admin panel under Paid Features.
  • Ad-Free — We offer a monthly ad-free service that removes all advertisements from your forum. Full details can be found in your forum's admin panel under Paid Features.
  • Domain Names — You can link your own domain name (such as your-name.com) to your forum for a yearly fee. Full details can be found in your forum's admin panel under Paid Features.
  • iPhone Application — Download the ProBoards application on the App Store to visit and post on your forum using your mobile device.
  • Android Application — You can download the ProBoards App from the Android Marketplace. Great for browsing your forum on the go!

Members

  • Bookmark Management — View and remove your bookmarks from an easy to manage screen.
  • Selectable Skins — If a forum offers multiple skins, you can switch between them to have a different look and feel to the forum.
  • Member Listing — Registered users can view a list of all registered members on a forum.
  • User Signatures — You can create your own custom signature that is displayed at the bottom of each post.
  • User Preferences — We offer you the ability to to customize your experience on our forums with various settings.
  • Forum Avatars — Select from a pre-made avatar if you don't have your own.
  • Mini Profiles — Next to each post we display the poster's mini profile. This includes information such as their member group, rank, avatar, personal text and other information.
  • Personal Text — Beneath your avatar you can display a short message.
  • Bookmark Notification — Optionally receive a personal message or email when one of your bookmarks has been updated.
  • Display Names — Your display name is the name displayed next to your posts. You can customize this from the Modify Profile page on your forum.
  • User Groups — Users can be placed into different User Groups. User Groups are normally used for moderation purposes, as each group can be customized to allow for certain forum powers.
  • Ranks — As you post on a forum your rank will increase. This gives you different titles and stars under your name.
  • Most Recent Posts — On each user's profile you can easily view their most recent posts.
  • User Avatars — You can choose to display an image with your postings.

Registration

  • CAPTCHA Visual Confirmation — All registrations require validation via CAPTCHA to ensure that bots are not creating accounts on your forum.
  • Email Verification — We verify that the email address a user registers with is valid by sending a confirmation code.
  • Optional Staff Verification — Allows for manual review of new accounts before they are granted full registration status on your forum.
  • Age Confirmation — ProBoards users must be at least 13 years old.