Can’t See Your Reddit Post? Sorting, Removed Posts, Spam Filters, Editing and Formatting

Does this match what you see?

• Your new post doesn’t appear in the subreddit.
• Your post was removed, or vanished soon after posting.
• Posts from your new account never seem to show up.

Computer (browser)iPhone & iPadAndroid

Based on eight Reddit Help articles (why you can’t see your post, Reddit’s rules, formatting, GIFs, comment images, editing, deleting, and user flair), supplied by the site owner on November 9, 2026.

Why this happens: the possible causes

Reddit’s four reasons, from most to least likely in our experience.

• The feed is sorted by HotCheck this first

  Hot puts the most upvoted posts first, so a brand-new post can be far down.

• Spam filter on a new or low-karma accountCheck this first

  Reddit limits how often new users can post and comment, especially in spam-sensitive communities.

• Removed by a moderatorPossible

  For breaking a community rule, such as formatting or staying on topic.

• A Reddit outageLess likely

  Check Reddit’s status page.

How to fix it, step by step

Work through these in order. They start with the quickest, safest checks and only move to steps that sign you out or remove data later.

What karma is, and how to check yours

Reddit says your karma reflects the upvotes and downvotes your posts and comments receive, and it goes up as people upvote you. It’s an approximate reflection, so upvotes and karma don’t match one-to-one. Some communities require a certain amount of karma before you can post, to prevent spam.

• See your karma on reddit.com: click your avatar (top right) > View Profile. Hover over your total karma in the profile card to see post and comment karma.
• In the app: go to your profile and tap the About tab.
• Need some karma? Reddit points to r/NewToReddit’s list of communities welcoming to new users (external site, opens in a new tab) without high karma limits. Reddit notes r/NewToReddit is an unofficial community, not run by Reddit admins.

Reddit’s advice: don’t chase karma; just be a good contributor. Our tip: never buy karma or upvotes. That’s vote manipulation, and it can get an account flagged.

Comment collapsed, or post held for review? Crowd Control

Reddit says Crowd Control is a safety setting that lets moderators automatically collapse or filter comments and filter posts from people who aren’t trusted members of their community yet, for example when a post goes viral and lots of newcomers arrive.

• Posts can’t be collapsed. Reddit says a crowd-controlled post goes to the moderators’ queue and isn’t visible to the community until a moderator approves it. If a moderator removes it, it’s officially removed.
• Comments are collapsed, or held for review if the community chooses. Approved comments appear as normal.
• Moderators can set it for the whole community or for a single post, and it’s available on all platforms.

Reddit lists three levels for comments:

• Moderate: accounts with negative karma in that community.
• High: the above, plus new accounts.
• Maximum: the above, plus people who haven’t joined the community.

Reddit says approved users aren’t affected.

Image or video held, but it isn’t explicit?

Some communities also turn on Reddit’s mature content filter, which Reddit says automatically sends images, videos or GIFs that likely contain sexual or graphic imagery to the moderators for review. Reddit says mistakes happen: pictures with a lot of skin, things that look like blood (such as tomato sauce or red dye), costumes or makeup, and some animations can be flagged wrongly.

Our tip: if a harmless image or video post seems stuck, send the moderators a short, polite mod mail explaining what it shows, rather than reposting it.

Our tip: join the community before you post or comment, and take part helpfully so your karma there stays positive. If your post seems held, give the moderators time before reposting; you can message them politely through mod mail (see ask the moderators).

How to join or leave a community

• Join on reddit.com: search for the topic (no need to type “r/”), open the community from the Communities section of the results, and click Join. It’s added to your home feed.
• Join in the app: tap the search icon (top right), open the Communities tab, then tap Join. Tap the community’s name first if you want to look around.
• Leave: open the community and click or tap Joined. In the app, a menu pops up with the leave option. Find your joined communities in the left sidebar on reddit.com (it lists up to 250) or the menu icon (top left) in the app.
• Not sure where to post? Reddit suggests r/findareddit, r/newreddits, r/popular, or Explore Communities in the left menu.

Reddit won’t let you post in a community? The Poster Eligibility Guide

Reddit says some communities set minimum requirements before you can post. If you don’t meet them, a Poster Eligibility Guide appears when you select Create a post in that community, explaining why you can’t post and what you can do to meet the criteria. Reddit lists three possible reasons: account age, karma, and not having a verified email address.

Reddit says the guide shows which karma, account age and account verification criteria you meet and don’t meet. Communities can look at:

• Your comment karma, post karma, or both combined.
• Your comment karma within that community.
• How old your account is.
• Whether your email is verified.

Reddit says it doesn’t disclose the exact karma and account age thresholds a community uses, to deter misuse, and that the guide blocks your post unless you meet all of the criteria. It updates every six hours to reflect changes to the community’s rules. Moderators and approved submitters don’t see it.

What you can do

• Email not verified? Add and verify one: see add an email to your Reddit account.
• Karma too low? Our tip: comment helpfully in that community and others, then check the guide again. See get past the spam filter.
• Account too new? Our note: there’s nothing to do but wait; Reddit doesn’t say how long a community requires.

Post Check: rule warnings before you post

Reddit says Post Check is available on reddit.com, mobile web, and the iPhone and Android apps. When you tap Post, it uses a large language model (AI) to review your draft against the community’s rules. If it spots something that might break a rule, it highlights it and suggests changes, but it won’t stop you from posting. If it finds nothing, nothing appears and your post goes through as normal.

Our note: Post Check is guidance, not approval. Moderators can still remove a post that breaks their rules, so read the community’s rules in its sidebar too.

Is Reddit down?

Check Reddit’s status page at redditstatus.com. If there’s an incident, you can follow it until it’s resolved, then try posting again.

Edit or delete a post or comment

You can edit text posts and comments, but Reddit says you can only change a post’s content, not its title. Edited items show an asterisk so others know they changed.

1. On your post or comment, click or tap the overflow menu (three dots).
2. Choose Edit Post or Edit Comment, make your changes and save.

Our tip: if a moderator removed your post for its title, editing won’t fix that; read the rules and post again.

Deleting is permanent. Reddit says a deleted post or comment can’t be restored: neither moderators nor Reddit admins can bring it back. If you just want to fix it, edit instead.

Set your user flair in a community

User flair is the icon or text next to your username in a community. Each community’s moderators set up its flairs.

• reddit.com: on the right of the community page, find USER FLAIR and click the edit (pencil) icon.
• Old Reddit: under the reader count, next to Show my flair on this subreddit, click edit.
• iPhone and Android: tap the overflow menu (three dots) at the top right of the community page > Change user flair, pick one and tap APPLY.

No flair option, or the app says No user flair assigned? Reddit says only that community’s moderators can set flair for you, so message them.

Formatting, GIFs, images or videos not working?

Reddit has two editors. The rich text editor has buttons for bold, italics, strikethrough, headings, spoilers and links. The markdown editor lets you type formatting symbols in plain text, and Reddit says it’s only available on reddit.com and old.reddit.com.

Changing (as of November 2026): Reddit says it’s moving the mobile app entirely to the rich text composer. The old markdown editor is being retired there, so typed markdown such as asterisks won’t convert in the app any more. Use the formatting buttons in the app, or post from a computer if you need markdown.

No GIF button in the comment box? Reddit says that community has turned GIFs off, or it’s an NSFW community. Where GIFs are allowed, tap or click the GIF button in the comment box, search (powered by GIPHY), pick one, then finish and send your comment. To swap it: on reddit.com click the trash icon on the GIF; in the app, delete it like text.

No image button in the comment box? Same reasons: the community has turned images off, or it’s NSFW. Reddit says comment images only work in safe-for-work communities, must follow the Reddit Rules, and NSFW images are removed. Where allowed, use the Image icon in the comment box and pick a picture; Reddit lists a maximum height or width of 240px. To swap it, click the trash icon (reddit.com) or backspace over it (app).

No video button? Same reasons again: the community has turned videos off, or it’s NSFW. Reddit says comment videos only work in safe-for-work communities, must follow the Reddit Rules, and its safety systems block NSFW uploads. Where allowed, use the video icon in the comment box to select or record a video. Reddit’s limits: 2 seconds to 3 minutes long, under 1 GB (300 MB or less recommended), at least 50×50 pixels and a bitrate of at least 1 KB/s. To swap it, click the trash icon (reddit.com) or backspace over it (app).

Post marked as a spoiler, or its thumbnail blurred?

Reddit says a post tagged as a spoiler gets a SPOILER label, a blurred thumbnail, and a preview that’s hidden until someone clicks to reveal it. You or a moderator can tag a post, and Reddit tags it automatically if the title contains “spoiler” or “spoilers”, but not if it says “no spoiler” or “no spoilers”. Reddit says the NSFW tag works the same way.

• Add the tag on reddit.com: when creating a post, click Add flair and tags and turn the spoiler slider on.
• In the app: tap Create, tap Add tags and flair, then turn the Spoiler slider on.

Our note: if your post was tagged when you didn’t mean it to be, check the title for the word “spoiler”.

Comment count higher than the comments you can see?

Reddit says that when a comment is removed, it’s hidden from people in the thread but the comment count stays the same. Comments are often removed by moderators or automod for breaking community rules, or by Reddit’s spam filter, so it’s common for the count to be higher than the comments you can see.

Our note: comments can also be collapsed by Crowd Control, or hidden from you if you’ve blocked their author.

Can’t see how many upvotes a post or comment has?

Reddit says that for the first few hours after a post is created, its votes aren’t displayed, to prevent vote manipulation and so people aren’t swayed by how others voted. Some communities also choose to hide votes on posts and comments for a short time for the same reason. Our note: this is normal, so the score should appear later.

Post is up but nobody’s seeing it?

Reddit says there’s no single way to guarantee a post gets noticed, but suggests:

• Know your audience: pick the community your post fits best. Reddit says the more relevant it is, the more likely people are to upvote it, so more people see it.
• Follow the rules: check the community’s guidelines on format and content so you don’t miss something.
• Repost to relevant communities: Reddit says reposting (formerly called crossposting) to another community where your post is relevant can get it more exposure.

How to repost (formerly crossposting)

Reddit says a repost shows a preview of the original post or comment, with its username, community and upvote score, so people can find the source. Not every community allows reposts: if one doesn’t, it’s greyed out when you pick a community.

• On reddit.com: click Repost under the post, choose a community in Select a community, edit the title or add flair if needed, then click Post.
• On iPhone: tap the Repost icon under the post, find the community, edit the title or flair if needed, then tap Post.
• On Android: tap the Repost icon, choose a community or your profile in the Post to menu, edit the title or flair if needed, then tap Post.
• Share a comment as a post: open the overflow menu (⋯) below the comment and select Share as post, choose a community, add a title or text if you like, then Post.

Our tip: repost only where it genuinely fits. Reddit itself warns that reposting randomly in unrelated communities can be seen as spammy.

Is it just this post, or your whole account?

• One post missing in one community: use the fixes above.
• Everything you post is invisible to others, and your profile too: your account may be flagged for spam. See Reddit “shadowban”.
• A message saying you’re banned from the community: see community bans.

Error messages and what they mean

These are the messages as people report seeing them. The exact wording on your screen can differ by app version, language and region, so match the meaning, not every word.

Seeing a different message? Try the error message decoder.

How to know it worked

• Your post appears in the community when sorted by New.

Still not working? Your next steps

1. Got a ban or warning message in your inbox? See Reddit account banned, suspended or locked.

Frequently asked questions