Reddit allows you to delete your own comments and posts.
If you regret posting a comment, you can delete it by clicking on the three dots > Delete comment > Delete.
Although your comment will be deleted, the thread will not be deleted.
For example, if someone else replied to your comment, their reply will not be deleted.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to find, recover, or see deleted comments or posts on Reddit.
How to see deleted Reddit comments
To see deleted Reddit comments, you need to first copy the link to the thread.
After you’ve copied the link to the thread, paste the link into Wayback Machine.
Lastly, select a date and time before the comment was deleted, scroll down, and try finding the comment.
Wayback Machine allows you to find archived Reddit comments and posts.
It does this by capturing screenshots of Reddit threads and storing them.
Let’s say that someone posted a comment on February 1 and deleted it on February 10.
If so, you can try finding their comment by selecting a screenshot before February 10.
If you’re lucky, the comment will be crawled and captured by Wayback Machine before it was deleted.
Here are 3 steps to see deleted Reddit comments:
Step #1: Copy the link to the thread
The first step is to copy the link to the Reddit thread.
To do so, open Reddit and navigate to the thread where the comment is located.
Deleted comments will be indicated by this phrase, “Comment deleted by user”.
Now, you can either copy the URL of the thread or the comment.
If you want to copy the URL of the thread, highlight the URL and click on “Copy”.
If you want to copy the URL of the comment, click on the date (e.g. 11 mo. ago), highlight the URL, and click on “Copy”.
In most cases, you should be copying the URL of the thread instead of the comment.
This is because a thread is more likely to be crawled than a comment on Reddit.
The only problem is if the comment is too long.
If the comment is too long, it may be cut off when you’re viewing an archive of it later.
Step #2: Paste the link into Wayback Machine
After you’ve copied the link to the Reddit thread/comment, you need to navigate to Wayback Machine.
Click on this link to visit the Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/web/.
Once you’re on the website, paste the URL into the text field.
Click on “Browse History” to see its captures.
Wayback Machine is a service that allows you to see what websites looked like in the past.
You can also use it to find deleted posts or comments on some websites like Reddit.
Step #3: Select a date and time before the comment was deleted
After you’ve clicked on “Browse history”, you’ll land on the calendar.
The calendar will contain colored dots in various sizes.
Now, you need to select a date and time before the Reddit comment was deleted.
To do this, you need to use the trial and error method.
For example, if the comment was deleted in August, you need to select a date in July.
Unfortunately, if you don’t see any dots, it means that the URL has not been crawled.
In other words, you won’t be able to see the deleted Reddit comment.
If the calendar contains a lot of dots, it means that it’s been crawled a lot.
A popular post/comment on Reddit will be crawled more than a post/comment that gets little to no engagement.
Hence, if you’re trying to find a deleted comment that has a lot of replies, you can probably find a screenshot of it in the calendar.
Step #4: Scroll down and find the deleted Reddit comment
After you’ve selected a date and time before the Reddit comment was deleted, you’ll land on the thread.
Now, you need to scroll down the thread until you find the deleted Reddit comment.
If the comment received a lot of upvotes, it’ll be somewhere at the top.
However, if the comment does not have a lot of upvotes, you have to scroll down for a while before you can find it.
If you’ve pasted the URL of the comment instead of the thread, you’ll see the deleted comment immediately.
However, if the comment is too long, it may be cut off and you won’t be able to see some of it.
In the screenshot above, you can see that I’ve managed to locate the deleted Reddit comment.
This is because the comment has the same reply as the first screenshot, “That was BEYOND worth the read”.
You’ve successfully learned how to see a deleted comment on Reddit!
How to see deleted Reddit posts
- Navigate to the deleted Reddit post.
- Copy the URL of the deleted Reddit post.
- Go to https://archive.org/web/.
- Paste the URL that you’ve just copied.
- Click on “Browse History”.
- Select a date and time before the post was deleted (this requires trial and error).
- See the deleted Reddit post.
Conclusion
Wayback Machine works best for popular Reddit comments and posts that were deleted.
This is because popular comments and posts are crawled more than unpopular ones.
If a comment or post has no upvotes, it probably won’t be crawled.
As a result, if it got deleted, you won’t be able to find it back.
You might have noticed that the calendar contains different colored dots of different sizes.
Essentially, the bigger the dot, the more activity it has.
The blue dot means that the URL has been successfully crawled.
If you don’t see any dots in the calendar, it means that the URL has not been crawled once.
Unfortunately, if the URL is not crawled, you won’t be able to find the deleted Reddit comment or post.
Further reading
345+ Good, Aesthetic, and Best Reddit Usernames
