You’ve been there. You are scrolling through a juicy thread on r/AmItheAsshole or a heated political debate, and suddenly, the top comment—the one with 4,000 upvotes and fifty gold awards—is just a grayed-out block of text that says [removed].
It’s frustrating. It's like someone ripped the last page out of a mystery novel.
The internet is supposed to be forever, right? Well, sort of. While Reddit's administrators and volunteer moderators have the power to scrub content from the site's front end, the "ghosts" of those comments often linger in third-party archives. But here is the catch: the cat-and-mouse game between Reddit’s API changes and archival developers has made most of the old tricks obsolete. If you are looking for "unddit" or "removeddit" today, you're going to find a graveyard of broken links and 404 errors.
The Great API Shift of 2023 and Why Everything Broke
To understand how to see removed reddit comments now, you have to understand the "Great Blackout" of mid-2023. Reddit changed its API (Application Programming Interface) pricing. This didn't just kill third-party apps like Apollo; it effectively nuked the real-time scrapers that archival sites used to "sip" the Reddit data stream.
Before the change, sites like Pushshift.io would ingest every single comment as it happened. When a moderator deleted something, the archive already had a copy. Now? Access is restricted. Most tools you’ll find via a quick Google search are basically digital fossils. They worked in 2021. They don't work in 2026.
I’ve spent way too much time testing these tools. Most "mirrors" are now just ad-heavy wrappers that don't actually pull new data.
Reveddit: The Last Man Standing (Mostly)
If you want to see what happened to your own comments or check a specific thread, Reveddit is basically the gold standard, though even it has its wings clipped. Created by developer Rob Goodman, Reveddit doesn't show you everything that was ever deleted. Instead, it focuses on content that was removed by moderators or "automod" scripts rather than the user themselves.
Here is how you use it. You go to the site and plug in a username or a thread URL.
The interesting part? It uses a "diff" logic. It compares what is currently on Reddit to what it saw previously. However, because of those API restrictions we talked about, it can't always grab content the millisecond it’s posted. If a comment is nuked by a bot within three seconds of being posted, there is a high probability that no archive caught it. It’s gone. Poof.
Is it reliable?
Kinda. It’s the most reliable thing we have left. It is particularly good for seeing if your own posts are being "shadow-removed." That is when your comment looks fine to you, but it's actually invisible to everyone else. It happens more than you’d think.
The Wayback Machine: The Slow But Steady Method
Good old Internet Archive. It feels clunky. It feels like 1998. But it works because it doesn't rely on the Reddit API in the same way.
The Wayback Machine uses "crawlers." These are bots that visit a page and take a snapshot of exactly what it looks like at that moment. If you are trying to see removed reddit comments from a massive, viral thread that was on the front page (r/all), there is a massive chance a crawler hit that page while the comment was still live.
- Copy the URL of the Reddit thread.
- Paste it into the Wayback Machine.
- Look for "snapshots" taken around the time the thread was trending.
The downside? It’s hit or miss for smaller subreddits. If you're looking for a deleted comment in a niche hobbyist group with 200 members, the Internet Archive probably didn't bother to save it. They prioritize high-traffic pages.
Google Cache and Search Snippets
This is a "desperation move" but honestly, it works surprisingly often. When Google indexes a page, it saves a version of the text.
If the comment was removed very recently, try searching for a specific string of text from the thread (if you remember it) or the thread title on Google. Sometimes, the "Search Snippet"—that little blurb of text under the blue link—will still show the first few sentences of a deleted top comment.
You can also try the cache: operator in the search bar (e.g., cache:reddit.com/r/technology/...). Just know that Google has been phasing out the "Cached" button in search results lately, so this trick is becoming a bit of a relic.
Why Do Comments Actually Get Removed?
People usually think it’s a big conspiracy or "censorship." Sometimes, sure. But usually, it’s much more boring.
Reddit uses a tool called Automoderator. It’s a script that every subreddit can customize. If a subreddit has a rule that says "No accounts under 24 hours old can post," the Automod deletes those comments instantly. Those are almost impossible to recover because they exist for such a short window of time.
Then you have "Hard Deletions" vs. "Soft Deletions."
- [removed]: This means a moderator or a bot deleted it. The data is often still on Reddit’s servers, just hidden.
- [deleted]: This means the user deleted it themselves. When a user deletes their own content, Reddit is legally/technically compelled to scrub the text, making it much harder for archives to keep a copy.
The Privacy Dilemma
We have to talk about the ethics here for a second. If someone posts something personal—maybe they're venting about a job or a relationship—and then they realize, "Oh crap, I shouldn't have said that," and they hit delete, they have a "right to be forgotten."
Sites that archive removed comments are essentially bypassing that choice. This is why Reddit fought so hard against Pushshift. They argued that if a user wants their data gone, it should be gone.
But from a researcher's perspective or just a curious bystander, seeing those comments provides context. Without them, conversations look like one hand clapping. You see the replies, but not the prompt. It’s a mess.
Pulling Data via PullPush and Ghost Archive
Since Pushshift went behind a paywall (mostly for researchers), new players have stepped in. PullPush is a common alternative that tries to replicate the old Pushshift API. Some developers use this to build new "Reddit viewers."
👉 See also: The Truth About the Remains of Challenger Crew: What We Know Decades Later
There is also Ghost Archive. It’s similar to the Wayback Machine but often faster for social media posts. If a thread was controversial, someone might have manually archived it there. It’s always worth a shot if Reveddit comes up empty.
What to Do When Everything Fails
If you’ve tried Reveddit, the Wayback Machine, and Google Cache, and you still see that annoying [removed], you have to get creative.
Check the replies.
Usually, the person replying to the deleted comment will quote part of it. If you see a reply that starts with a > followed by text, that’s a direct quote. You can piece together the original "crime" just by reading the reactions. If everyone is saying, "Wow, I can't believe you'd say that about hedgehogs," you can safely assume the original comment was a hedgehog-hating manifesto.
Real-World Limitations
Let’s be real: the "Golden Age" of seeing deleted Reddit content is over.
Between 2015 and 2022, it was trivial. You just changed "reddit.com" to "https://www.google.com/search?q=unddit.com" in the URL and you were a god. Now, it’s a struggle. Reddit’s move toward a "walled garden" model means they want total control over their data. They don't want third parties making money or providing tools that circumvent their moderation decisions.
Also, mobile users are mostly out of luck. Most of these archival tools work best on a desktop browser where you can easily manipulate URLs and use browser extensions.
Actionable Steps for the Next Time You Hit a Wall
If you find a thread and you're desperate to see what was scrubbed, follow this exact workflow:
- Check Reveddit first. It’s the fastest. Just change the "v" in reddit.com to "c" (recidit) or go directly to the Reveddit site and paste the link.
- Look for the "Archive" bots. Some subreddits actually have bots that automatically archive every post in a stickied comment. It’s rare, but high-quality subs do it.
- Use the "Share" link to copy the URL and plug it into Ghost Archive or Wayback Machine. Do this sooner rather than later; the longer you wait, the less likely a crawler has visited the page.
- Search the username. If you can see the username of the person whose comment was removed (sometimes it still shows), search that username on a site like RedditSearch.io. It might have indexed their post history before the removal happened.
- Check the "Sort by: Old" trick. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the mobile app caches a version of the thread. If you open a thread while on Wi-Fi, then go offline, sometimes the deleted comments are still "stuck" in your phone's temporary cache. It’s a long shot, but I've seen it work.
The reality of the modern internet is that data is becoming more ephemeral, not less. Companies have realized that "forever" is a liability. For now, these tools provide a window into the "hidden" Reddit, but that window is definitely getting smaller every year.
Stay skeptical of any new tool that asks you to download an .exe or a weird browser extension to "unlock" deleted comments. Those are almost certainly malware. Stick to the web-based archives that have a reputation in the privacy community.
Key takeaway: To see removed reddit comments in 2026, you need a mix of Reveddit for moderator-deleted content and the Wayback Machine for high-traffic "lost" threads. There is no longer a "one-click" solution that works 100% of the time.