How to Recover a Deleted Reddit Post or Comment

Short answer: you cannot un-delete it on Reddit itself, but you can often still recover the text. Once a post or comment is deleted by its author or removed by a moderator, Reddit gives you no button to bring it back. What you can do is find a copy that was captured while the content was still public. Whether that works comes down mostly to timing.

This guide explains what recovering really means, the methods that work, and what to do if the content is your own.

First, what "recover" actually means

People mean two different things by recovering a deleted post:

• Putting it back on Reddit, live in the thread. For a deleted item this is essentially not possible. The author cannot undo a deletion, and Reddit support will not restore it for you.
• Reading the original text again, even though it is gone from the thread. This is often possible.

So the realistic goal is the second one: getting the words back, not the live post.

One exception. If a comment was removed by a moderator rather than deleted by the author, a moderator of that subreddit can approve it back into the thread. If you are not a mod there you cannot do this yourself, but you can message the mods and ask.

Method 1: Look it up by username

If you know who posted it, the fastest route is a username lookup. deletedby.com gathers a Reddit user's posts and comments in one place, including items that were later deleted or removed, when a copy was captured in time. It is free and needs no account.

1. Open the home page.
2. Enter the username, with or without the u/ prefix. You can also paste a link to their profile instead of typing the name.
3. Find the post or comment in their history. The original text shows up where Reddit now displays [deleted] or [removed].

Method 2: Recover a whole thread

If a discussion lost replies, you do not have to chase each comment one by one. Paste the post link into deletedby.com and it opens the thread with the deleted and removed comments filled back in next to the ones still live, wherever a copy exists. This is the easiest way to read a conversation that has since been gutted.

Method 3: Check your own browser first

If you are trying to recover something you were reading moments ago:

• Reopen the last closed tab with Ctrl+Shift+T (or Cmd+Shift+T on a Mac), or dig through your browser history. The page may still be sitting in your cache.
• If you got an email or a push notification about the reply, the text is sometimes quoted inside it.

These only help in the first minutes or hours, but they cost nothing to try.

Method 4: Request your own Reddit data

If the content is yours, you can ask Reddit for a copy of your account data. There is a data request form in your account settings, and the export includes a record of your posts and comments. It is the official route for your own history, though it can take a few days to arrive and may not include everything you hoped for.

What you can and cannot recover

You can usually get:

• The original text of many deleted or removed posts and comments
• The username that wrote it and roughly when

You generally cannot get:

• Anything deleted within seconds of posting, before any copy was made
• Edits made before the copy was captured, since you see the captured version
• Content from a private, banned, or quarantined community that was never public

No method recovers everything. It all depends on whether a copy existed before the content came down.

If the content is your own and you want it gone

There is a flip side. If you are here because you deleted something and want it gone for good, deleting it on Reddit does not always erase the copies that already exist elsewhere. If a recovered copy of your own content is showing up and you want it taken down, see the removal and opt-out page.

The bottom line

You cannot un-delete a Reddit post or comment on Reddit, but the text is often recoverable if a copy was saved before it was deleted. The quickest check is to look up the username or paste the post link and see what comes back.