How to Make Your Ask Box Show on Your Page on Tumblr

By Andrea Ruiz

Although Tumblr doesn't have a true private-messaging system for its users, Ask messages enable you to receive direct messages from both anonymous and logged-in users to your aggregate inbox. You can reply either publicly by posting the exchange as a blog post, or privately if the user is logged in. Enabling the feature on your account creates an automatically generated Ask page, and on most Tumblr themes displays a link to your Ask box on your blog's layout.

Enable the Ask Box

Click the gear icon on your dashboard. You must be logged in to your main Tumblr account to perform this action.

Select the tab for the blog on which you want to enable your Ask box, and then locate the Ask section on the settings page.

Toggle the switch next to "Let People Ask Questions" to "On." The switch changes from gray to blue. By default, Tumblr enables an Ask page at the URL with the following syntax:

http://yourblog.tumblr.com/ask

Replacing "yourblog" with your blog's name.

Enter a page title for your Ask page in the Ask Page Title field. To allow anonymous users to send you asks, toggle the switch to "On" next to "Allow Anonymous Questions." Tumblr automatically saves all of your changes.

Tips

If you receive any abusive, harassing or spam messages in your Ask box, you can block the user's Tumblr account and the IP associated with the account by clicking the "X" in the Ask message, adding the user to your Ignored Users list.

Warnings

The vast majority of Tumblr themes display a link to your Ask box in your home page by default when you enable the feature. However, some themes require you to enable your Tumblr pages to display in your blog's layout via its customization settings.

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