How Reddit Search Works
Reddit search indexes post titles and post bodies, not comment text. It returns roughly 1,000 items per sort order and covers only public subreddits. That combination explains almost every frustrating Reddit search: the thing you are looking for is often in a comment, and comments are not searchable.
What Reddit indexes, and what it does not
| Content | Searchable on Reddit? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Post titles | Yes | The best-supported case by some distance. |
| Post bodies | Yes | Text posts only. Link posts have no body. |
| Comment text | No | The critical gap. Use Google, or go through the account. |
| Usernames | Exact only | No partial or fuzzy matching. Capitalisation is ignored. |
| Private and quarantined subreddits | No | Excluded entirely. |
| Deleted content | No | Sometimes recoverable from public archives instead. |
The 1,000-item ceiling
Reddit paginates listings, and stops at around 1,000 items. This applies to a subreddit's posts, a user's post history, a user's comment history, and search results alike.
The useful consequence: the cap applies per sort order, not per account. Newest-first, top of all time and controversial each return a different 1,000 items from the same larger history. Reading several sorts recovers considerably more than any single one, which is exactly what the tools on this site do.
Worked example
You remember someone explaining a car repair in a comment. You search Reddit for the phrase and get nothing, because comment text is not indexed. Three things do work:
- Google the phrase with
site:reddit.com. Google indexes comments, so this often finds the thread directly. - Search for the post instead. You may not recall the comment's wording, but the thread it was in usually had a searchable title.
- Go through the account. If you remember who wrote it, reading their comment history bypasses the index problem entirely.
Tips
- Switch the sort order before assuming something is missing. Relevance and new return genuinely different sets.
- Search titles rather than remembered phrasing. Titles are indexed best.
- Narrow to a subreddit when you know it. A smaller pool is far less likely to hit the cap.
- Reach for Google whenever the words you remember were in a reply.
Common mistakes
- Assuming no results means it was deleted. Far more often it was a comment, and comments are not searchable.
- Typing r/ after the subreddit operator. It is
subreddit:cats, notsubreddit:r/cats. - Trusting a single sort order to represent a whole history when the cap is in play.
- Expecting fuzzy username matching. Reddit needs the exact name.
Frequently asked questions
- Why can't I search Reddit comments?
- Reddit's search index covers post titles and post bodies. Comment text is not searchable site-wide. This is the single biggest gap in Reddit search and the reason most failed searches fail.
- Does Reddit search cover every subreddit?
- Only public ones. Private and quarantined subreddits are excluded, and their content does not appear in results no matter how you search.
- Why does the same search give different results each time?
- Sorting changes which slice of a capped result set you see. Reddit returns at most about 1,000 items per sort order, so switching between new, top and relevance surfaces different items from the same larger pool.
- Is Google better than Reddit's own search?
- For finding a specific thread, often yes. Google indexes comment text, which Reddit's search does not, so a site:reddit.com query can find a discussion by words that only ever appeared in a reply.
- How far back does Reddit search go?
- There is no hard date cutoff, but the roughly 1,000-item cap per sort order means old content on active accounts and busy subreddits becomes effectively unreachable through listings alone.
Skip the index problem: search an account's history directly.
Search a Reddit username