Reddit is a graveyard. You’ve seen it: a thread with five thousand upvotes, a hundred awards, and a top comment that just says [deleted]. Or maybe it says [removed]. There is a difference, by the way. Deleted means the user nuked it; removed means a mod stepped in with the digital guillotine. Either way, it’s annoying. You want to know what was said. You want the tea, the advice, or the controversial take that caused the firestorm.
But here is the reality check. Seeing deleted Reddit posts isn't as easy as it was in 2022. Back then, we had Pushshift. We had Undedit. We had Reveddit. You could basically time-travel through the site’s history with a single click. Then the API changes of 2023 happened, and the lights went out for most of these tools.
Honestly, most "guides" you read online right now are lying to you. They list tools that have been broken for two years. If a site tells you to use "https://www.google.com/search?q=unddit.com," they haven't checked their own links lately. It’s dead.
The Current State of the Reddit Archive
Let's talk about why this got so hard. Reddit’s API—the bridge that lets outside programs talk to Reddit’s database—used to be free and open. Third-party developers built massive archives. Pushshift, managed by Jason Baumgartner, was the gold standard. It ingested every post and comment in real-time. When a user deleted a post on Reddit, it lived on in the Pushshift archive.
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Then Reddit started charging millions of dollars for access.
They also restricted how that data could be used. This effectively killed the "instant" archival sites. Nowadays, if you want to see a deleted post, you’re playing a game of digital forensics. You aren't looking for a live mirror; you’re looking for a footprint left in the snow before the sun came out.
The Wayback Machine (The Old Reliable)
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is your first stop, but it’s a crapshoot. It doesn't crawl every single page on Reddit. It tends to focus on high-traffic threads. If the post you’re looking for was on the front page of r/All or r/Technology, there’s a decent chance a crawler grabbed it.
To use it, you need the URL. You can’t just search "that one post about the cat."
Copy the link of the deleted thread. Paste it into the Wayback Machine search bar. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a calendar with blue circles. Those are snapshots. Click one from before the deletion happened.
One thing people forget: sometimes the main thread is archived, but the specific comment you want is buried under a "Load more comments" button. The Wayback Machine doesn't always click those buttons for you. It’s a static snapshot, not a functional website.
Why Google Cache Isn't Your Friend Anymore
For years, the "cache" button on Google Search was the secret weapon for seeing deleted Reddit posts. You’d search the thread title, click the three dots, and hit "Cached."
Google officially retired the Cache feature in early 2024.
Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, confirmed this on X (formerly Twitter). He mentioned that it was a legacy feature from a time when page loading was slow. Now, Google thinks we don't need it. This was a massive blow to online researchers and the naturally curious.
However, there is a "kinda-sorta" workaround. Sometimes, if a post was deleted very recently, the Google Search Snippet still shows the first few sentences of the post body. You have to be fast. If Google re-indexes the page and sees the "deleted" text, that snippet vanishes forever.
Using Search Operators to Find Mirrored Content
When a Reddit post goes viral, it doesn't just stay on Reddit. It gets scraped. Dozens of low-quality "content farms" have bots that automatically turn Reddit threads into "articles."
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This is where search operators come in.
Try searching for a unique string of text from the post (if you remember it) or the exact title in quotes. Use the site: operator to exclude Reddit itself.
Example: "exact title of the deleted post" -site:reddit.com
You might find the entire text of the post on a site like BuzzFeed (if they did a "20 People Share Their Scariest Stories" list) or on one of those weird "archive" mirrors that pop up and disappear every six months.
PullPush and the New Era of Archiving
Since the original Pushshift went behind a mod-only wall, a few spiritual successors have popped up. The most notable one right now is PullPush.
PullPush is essentially a community-driven effort to keep the data flowing. It’s used by some researchers and developers to rebuild what was lost. While there isn't a "one-click" beautiful website like Reveddit used to be, some developers have built interfaces on top of PullPush.
- SocialGrep: This is a powerful tool for searching Reddit's history. It has a functional export and search feature that sometimes catches things Reddit’s own search engine misses.
- RedditSearch.io: This one has had its ups and downs with uptime, but it’s worth checking if the API-specific tools are back online.
The problem? Most of these services are forced to comply with Reddit’s "Right to be Forgotten" requests. If a user deletes their account and requests their data be wiped from the API, these archives often have to scrub it too. The wild west days of 2018 are gone.
The "Share" Link Trick
Sometimes you don't need a tool. You just need a different perspective. If you are looking at a deleted post on the Reddit mobile app, it might look like a total dead end.
But check this: If you have the link to a deleted thread, try opening it in a "private" or "incognito" browser window. Occasionally, if the post was removed by a moderator and not deleted by the user, the post content might still be visible in the metadata or to non-logged-in users for a brief window during the caching lag. It’s a long shot. It works maybe 5% of the time. But 5% isn't 0%.
What About Third-Party Reddit Apps?
Remember the massive protests? Users went dark because apps like Apollo and RIF (Reddit Is Fun) were being killed. Those apps actually had better caching than the official Reddit app.
If you still use a patched version of a third-party app (via things like Revanced), you might notice that some deleted content lingers in your local cache. If you viewed the post before it was deleted, your phone might still have the text stored in its temporary files. This is strictly for your eyes only, though—it won't help you find a post you've never seen before.
Why Mods Remove Posts (And Where They Go)
When a mod removes a post, it’s usually because of a rule violation. r/Science is famous for this. They have a "comment graveyard" in almost every thread because they require citations.
There is a sub called r/Undelered. It’s an automated bot-run subreddit that crossposts threads that were deleted from the front page of Reddit. If the post you’re looking for was a big deal, search r/Undeleted. If the bot caught it before the mod nuked it, the title and sometimes the content will be right there.
The Ethical (and Legal) Side of the Coin
We have to talk about why things are deleted. Sometimes it’s a mistake. Sometimes it’s a "drunk post" someone regrets. But sometimes, it’s because of a doxxing incident or a legal threat.
When you go hunting for deleted content, you’re essentially bypassing the user's intent. Reddit has moved closer to a "right to disappear" model. While the internet never forgets, it’s getting a lot harder to remember.
Also, be careful with sites claiming to see deleted Reddit posts that ask you to download a Chrome extension or a "viewing tool." Do not do this. There is no legitimate software you need to download to see a deleted post. These are almost always malware or browser hijackers designed to steal your Reddit session tokens. If it’s not a website you can view in a standard browser, it’s a scam.
A Note on Images and Videos
Videos are the hardest to recover. Text is small; it’s easy to archive. Video is heavy. If a user deletes a video post, and it wasn't mirrored to a site like YouTube or Streamable, it is likely gone forever. The Wayback Machine rarely archives the actual video file on Reddit’s servers—it usually just saves the page layout and a broken play button.
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For images, you can try a reverse image search on the thumbnail if you can still see it. Use Yandex Images or Google Lens. Often, someone else has re-uploaded that image to Twitter, Pinterest, or an Imgur gallery.
Summary of Actionable Steps
Stop clicking on dead links and trying tools from 2021. If you need to see a post right now, follow this sequence:
- Check the URL on the Wayback Machine. It’s the only true "archive" left that isn't dependent on the Reddit API.
- Search the exact title in quotes on Google and Yandex. Look for "scrapers" or "content farms" that might have copied the text.
- Search r/Undeleted. This is specifically for posts that were removed by moderators after hitting a certain popularity threshold.
- Try SocialGrep. It’s the most consistent tool for searching the metadata that survives the API purges.
- Look for mirrors. If the post contained a link or an image, use reverse search tools to find where else that content exists on the web.
The era of easy, one-click "un-deletion" is over. Reddit has tightened the screws. But because of how the web works—crawlers, scrapers, and the sheer speed of information—the "deleted" tag is often just a suggestion if you know where to dig.
Check the timestamps on any tool you use. If the "last update" was before June 2023, move on. The landscape of the internet changed that month, and seeing deleted Reddit posts became a specialist's job instead of a casual click. Your best bet is always going to be the independent archives that don't rely on Reddit's official permission to exist.