How to know if you are shadowbanned on Reddit

Reddit can hide your account and never tell you.

You keep posting. It all looks normal from your side. Nobody else sees a word.

Here is how to check, in 4 parts, with 5 things you can copy.

Save this. You'll want it the day an account goes quiet.

Short answer

Open a private browser window, so you are logged out, and go to your profile at reddit.com/user/yourname. If Reddit says the page or the user does not exist, or your posts are missing there but show up when you are logged in, your account is probably shadowbanned. That means Reddit hid everything you post from everyone but you. The fix is one appeal at reddit.com/appeals, not a new account.

Key takeaways

• A shadowban hides your whole account. A subreddit ban, a suspension and a spam filter removal are smaller problems with other fixes.
• You can check for free in a few minutes with a private window, a friend and a post in r/ShadowBan.
• Reddit puts no public timer on a shadowban, so plan to appeal.
• A second account made to get around the first one can count as ban evasion and make things worse.

1. What is a Reddit shadowban, and what else could it be?

A Reddit shadowban is when Reddit hides your account without telling you. You can still log in, post and comment. Other people see nothing. Reddit's help center calls it an account flagged for spam or inauthentic activity. Before you panic, rule out the smaller problems that look the same from your side.

The quiet part is on purpose. If Reddit told a spammer they were banned, they would make a new account in a minute. Hidden, they keep posting into nothing and may not notice for a long time.

The trouble is that real people get caught too.

This is the table I use to tell them apart.

In my experience the last row is the most common one. It is also the only one with no form to fill in.

A suspension comes from Reddit's admins, who enforce the Content Policy. You get a message saying so, and a temporary one ends on the date it gives.

A subreddit ban comes from that subreddit's moderators. You can still read the subreddit. You just can't post there.

AutoModerator is the sneaky one. Mods can set it to remove every post from some accounts without a word. That works like a shadowban that covers one subreddit.

Why does a whole account get flagged? Reddit does not publish its triggers. But a brand new account that drops a link on day one looks exactly like a spammer, even when a real person is behind it.

That is the problem I built Rankhog around. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.

2. How do I check if I am shadowbanned on Reddit?

Run four checks. Look at your profile while logged out. Look at one of your recent comments while logged out. Post in r/ShadowBan and read the bot's reply. If Reddit will not show you anything without a login, ask a friend to look. If all four look normal, you are not shadowbanned, so go back to the table.

Reddit has no official shadowban checker. These four checks are the closest thing.

Here is the checklist. Copy it into your notes.

1. Open a private or incognito window. Go to reddit.com/user/yourname.
2. In the same window, open a thread you commented on in the last two days. Find your comment.
3. Post in r/ShadowBan with any title. Wait for the bot's reply.
4. If Reddit asks you to log in, send both links to a friend and ask what they see.

The profile check is the big one. If your profile loads with your posts, good. If Reddit says the page or the user does not exist, that is the classic shadowban result. If it says suspended, you have a suspension instead.

The comment check tells you about one comment at a time. One comment missing, or showing as removed, means a filter or a moderator took that one down. Every comment missing, in every subreddit, points at your whole account.

Last time I looked, r/ShadowBan had a bot that reads your account and replies with what it can see.

It is the one place on Reddit where "am I shadowbanned?" is a perfectly good post title.

The bot checks your account as a whole. It can't see one subreddit's private AutoModerator rules. So a clean answer from the bot does not mean every subreddit will take your posts.

One warning about a popular trick. Many guides tell you to open reddit.com/user/yourname/about.json while logged out.

That trick broke this month. On 12 October 2026, at 9:43 in the morning UTC, Rankhog's own readers started getting refused on those .json pages. In my tests, Reddit had stopped serving them to logged-out visitors. I moved Rankhog's reads to signed-in browsers within the week.

So that check now fails for everyone, shadowbanned or not. Use the profile page.

3. How do I get unshadowbanned on Reddit?

You appeal. A Reddit shadowban appeal goes through one form. Log in to the hidden account, go to reddit.com/appeals, and say in a few plain sentences what you did and what you will do differently. Send it once, and do not post from a second account while you wait. Reddit explains the steps on its enforcement and appeals page.

How long does a shadowban last? Reddit does not say. I have not found anything in its help pages that says a spam flag ends on its own. So I treat it as permanent until a person at Reddit reads an appeal.

The others are easier to time. A temporary suspension ends on the date in Reddit's message. A subreddit ban lasts as long as the mods decide, which can be forever.

Here is an appeal you can copy. Change the facts to match what you did. Do not claim anything that is not true, because the reviewer can see your history.

Hi, I think my account u/yourname was flagged for spam. I am a real person. Last week I shared a link to my own product in four subreddits on the same day. I understand now that this looks like spam. I have stopped, and from now on I will follow each subreddit's rules on links and self-promotion. Could you please review the account?

A subreddit ban goes to different people. Reddit's admins do not run subreddits, so you write to the mods through modmail. Here is a message for that.

Hi mods, I was banned from r/subredditname for my post about [topic]. I read the rules again and I see I broke the rule on self-promotion. I'm sorry about that. If you are open to it, I would like to take part again, and I will keep my product out of my posts. Thanks for your time.

Mods read a lot of angry modmail. A short, polite one stands out.

Whatever you do, don't keep posting from a second account while you wait. That can count as ban evasion, and it can turn one hidden account into two suspended ones.

4. How do I keep the next account clean?

Go slow and act like a person. Use one account per person and one browser for that account. Read and comment in small subreddits before big ones. Keep links rare until the account has a history. Check every post that mentions your product against the subreddit's rules before it goes up.

This is the rule block I use. Copy it and pin it somewhere you will see it.

Allow

• Reading, voting on posts you like, joining subreddits you care about.
• Short, helpful comments in small subreddits.
• Text posts once the account has a few weeks of normal history.

Ask first (read the rules, or ask the mods)

• Any link to your own site.
• Any mention of your product, even when someone asked for a tool.
• Posting the same idea in a second subreddit.

Never

• Voting for your own posts from your other accounts.
• Paying for votes or karma.
• Making a new account to get around a ban.
• Pasting the same comment into many threads.

Before you post anything with your product in it, paste it into the Reddit post checker. It compares your draft with the subreddit's published rules.

For the full list of rules that catch founders, read the Reddit rules that get marketers banned. If you are tempted to buy karma to speed things up, read karma farming vs warming up your account first. And if you plan to run any of this with software, here is why automated Reddit accounts get caught.

What I don't know yet

• Reddit does not publish what triggers a spam flag. What I wrote about causes is what I have seen, not a list from Reddit.
• I can't tell from the outside whether a flag came from a machine or a person.
• I have no data on which appeal wording works best. The template is plain because plain is easy to read, not because I tested it.
• The r/ShadowBan bot and Reddit's logged-out pages can change any week. The 12 October change is a good reminder.

Who this is not for

If Reddit sent you a suspension message, skip the checks and read it. It names the rule.

If you used several accounts to vote for each other, an appeal that pretends otherwise will not help. I would not write one.

What to do next

Today, in this order:

1. Run the profile check in a private window.
2. Check two recent comments while logged out.
3. Post in r/ShadowBan if you are still not sure.
4. If you are hidden, send one appeal and stop posting from other accounts.
5. If you are clean, run your next product post through the post checker before it goes up.

Check. Confirm. Appeal once. Slow down.

Thanks for reading. If you are starting a fresh account, give it a few weeks of normal use before you mention your product. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.