r/macapps rules, stats, and what to post

r/macapps is a community for everything related to Mac apps. The description says it is a one stop shop featuring app showcases, news, updates, sales, discounts and even freebies. The people posting there fall into two rough groups. Regular members share apps they found, ask for recommendations, and post about deals or free apps. App developers also post there, and the rules treat them as a distinct group with their own obligations, like using the right flair and following the promotion limits. So if you build a Mac app, this is a community where showcasing your work is expected, but only inside a fairly strict system.

The big one is “Read This Before Posting”. You need 10 karma earned by commenting in r/MacApps, you need to search the community before posting, and posts need flair. If you are an app developer, you cannot promote in the main feed unless you qualify and use the PCP template. “Official Distribution Channels Only” means every download link must come from the publisher's own source or the Mac App Store. “Limited Self-Promotion” allows infrequent self-promotion but no more than once per developer in 30 days, counted from your last app post even if it was removed. It also says you must always disclose your relationship to your software in comments, and you cannot promote your own app in comments until you have earned 10 karma in r/MacApps. “No Redirect URLs” bans redirect and shortened links. “No Affiliate / Referral / Invite Links” bans exactly what the name says. “Promote in Megathread” says that anyone who does not qualify through the trust or transparency requirements must limit promotion to the monthly megathread. “⚠️ Get Post Approval Here” says you must follow the linked instructions to gain post approval before posting. Finally “Reddit Rules” applies to everything.

If you are a founder with a Mac app, your safest path is the monthly megathread until you qualify for the main feed. A good post there is a simple showcase of your app with the right flair, matched to the flair hierarchy of Lifetime, Subscription or Free, and a download link that goes straight to the publisher's own site or the Mac App Store. If your app is open source, prefix your title with [OS]. Answer questions in other people's threads to earn your 10 karma first, and always say openly that you are the developer when your app comes up. Once you qualify, follow the PCP template exactly and keep to once per 30 days per developer. A genuinely useful post for this community is also one that helps people choose, like an honest comparison against similar apps, since the rules point members to an app comparisons resource when searching.

Do not promote in the main feed unless you qualify and use the PCP template, otherwise your post belongs in the monthly megathread. Do not post before you have the 10 local karma earned by commenting in the community, and do not skip the post approval instructions, because the rules warn that skipping them guarantees your posts get autoremoved. Do not post more than once per developer in 30 days, and remember the count starts from your last app post even if it was removed. Never promote your own app in someone else's promotion thread, and never hide that you made the app. Do not use download links from file hosting sites or blogs, only the publisher's official source or the Mac App Store. No redirect or shortened links, no affiliate, referral or invite links, and no piracy of any kind. Missing flair is also a problem, and posts need approval before they will show.

This is one of the few communities where the rules read like they were written by people who were burned and decided to do something about it, and I respect that. The trust versus transparency initiative is a genuinely interesting deal: prove you belong and you get main feed access, otherwise use the megathread. My advice is simple, spend a week being helpful in the comments first, because ten local karma is a low bar that filters out almost every spammer. If you skip the approval step, the rules literally promise your post gets autoremoved, so do not skip it.