What Do [deleted] and [removed] Mean on Reddit?
[deleted] means the person who wrote it took it down, or deleted their whole account. [removed] means someone else took it down: a subreddit's moderators, AutoModerator, or Reddit itself. The label tells you who acted, which also tells you whether the text might still be found.
Every label, side by side
| What you see | Who did it | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Text and author both [deleted] | The author | They deleted that post or comment |
| Text still there, author [deleted] | The author | They deleted their account but left this comment up |
| [removed], or "Removed by moderator" | Moderators or AutoModerator | It broke a rule of that subreddit |
| "Removed by Reddit" | Reddit's own staff | It broke Reddit's site-wide rules |
Why the difference matters
A removed comment is hidden from everyone except its author. The author still sees it on their own profile as if nothing happened, which is why people often do not realise a moderator took their comment down. A deleted comment is gone for everyone, the author included.
When a whole account is deleted, its posts and comments usually stay up with the author shown as [deleted]. That breaks the link between the content and the username, so searching that username on Reddit no longer finds them. How to tell if an account was deleted.
Can you still read it?
Sometimes. Public archives save Reddit content shortly after it is posted. If an archive saved a comment before it was deleted or removed, the original text can still be found by searching the author's username. If it was taken down before any archive saw it, nothing is left to find. Our tools for deleted comments and deleted posts check those archives for you.
Search a username to find comments an archive saved before they were taken down.
Find deleted comments