If you inherit an org that still has Chatter Answers data, the follows live in EntitySubscription pointed at Question records. Here is how to audit them without breaking the legacy community.
- Confirm Chatter Answers is enabled
Setup, Chatter Answers Settings shows whether the feature is on. If the node is missing, the org never enabled it and there is nothing to audit.
- Query EntitySubscription for Question parents
Run SELECT Id, SubscriberId, ParentId, CreatedDate FROM EntitySubscription WHERE Parent.Type = 'Question'. The result lists every legacy follow.
- Identify orphaned follows
Join the result back to Question to see whether the parent record still exists and the asker is still active. Inactive-user follows are safe to delete.
- Plan migration to Experience Cloud
Before retiring the legacy community, export Question, Reply, and follow records, then load them into the replacement Experience Cloud site using the standard Question and FeedItem objects.
- Delete or migrate follows last
Hard-delete legacy EntitySubscription rows only after migration is verified. Keeping them lets users continue receiving notifications from the legacy feed during the cutover.
- Chatter Answers cannot be re-enabled in a new org. If the Setup node is missing, the answer is to use Experience Cloud Q&A instead.
- Legacy Question and Reply records do not migrate automatically to FeedItem; the conversion requires a planned data migration project.
- Follow notifications respect the user's Chatter email cadence settings, which means a stale follow can quietly send daily digests for years if the user never unfollows.
- Deleting EntitySubscription rows is irreversible. Always export first if there is any chance of historical reporting on subscriber counts.