MyBB Community Forums

I'd like to close the forum but keep it viewable in only "Lite (Archive) Mode".

Would I be able to remove everything else in the root folder (minus admin panel) and then redirect the url to go straight to the archive url without messing anything up? Or are the other root files necessary for archive mode to work? The goal here is to save some storage space by removing folders and files.

Google search just kept taking me to the old 1.6 doc about archive mode.

First of all, deactivate any activities and deny all actions on users, groups, forums etc.

It would make sense to redirect any request to your website "index.php" directly to "./archive/index.php".
This can be easily done with .htaccess

Of course the Archive Mode needs some more core PHP files, especially "/inc/*".
Archive Mode "/archive/." consists of four files only. Check what files are mandatroy needed for archive, so find all 'require'd files in PHP code and keep these files.

For example:

./archive/index.php:
14: require_once "./global.php";
15: require_once MYBB_ROOT."inc/functions_post.php";

./global.php:
17 require_once dirname(dirname(__FILE__))."/inc/init.php";
18
19 require_once MYBB_ROOT."inc/functions_archive.php";
20 require_once MYBB_ROOT."inc/class_session.php";
21 require_once MYBB_ROOT."inc/class_parser.php";

In these 'require'd files also search for another 'require'd dependencies...
Better use this crossreference to figure out all you need:
https://crossreference.mybb.de/nav.html?index.html

After you know all files 'require'd, the rest can be done.

Note that attachments and smilies must not be deleted.

Good luck!
[ETS]

Thank you so much for the help! I'll give this a try asap.