Delete Reddit History: How to Do It and Why You Might Want To

You’re here because you’re a Reddit user and — for one reason or another — the desire to delete Reddit history has crossed your mind.

We won’t ask questions! Maybe it’s a string of search terms you’ve since come to regret, or you’ve picked one too many forum fights with strangers and you want to start with a clean slate, we’ll show you how to do it.

First, we have to understand what the word “history” means in various scenarios when it comes to your Reddit account and its history. Then, we’ll have a better idea of how to delete it.

How to Delete Reddit History on the Web

The first thing you can do when it comes to deleting Reddit history is deleting the searches you’ve done on Reddit.com.

To delete your Reddit search history, you need to understand how Reddit stores your search history. When you perform a search on Reddit.com, the history of your searches gets stored by your web browser’s cache, and not by Reddit itself.

If you wish to delete the internet cache in your web browser, it’s easy to do no matter which browser you favor. This may solve minor web-browsing problems you’ve been having, and it’ll turn your Reddit search history back to a blank slate.

How to Delete Your Reddit Search History in the App

There’s a cottage industry of third-party Reddit apps available for iOS and Android. The prices for clearing your Reddit search history will vary by app, but the official app makes it easy.

Once logged in, tap your avatar and then tap “Settings.” Within the following menu, you’ll see an option that says “Clear local history.” Select this option to delete your Reddit history for this device only.

How to Delete Individual Comments on Reddit

Sometimes you don’t want to delete your entire Reddit history. Maybe you just had a bad day and didn’t think before you fired off a comment, or your opinion has changed since you made a certain statement.

Whatever your reason, it’s important to know how to delete some parts of your Reddit history without nuking the whole account.

To do this, start on the Reddit homepage or the main menu in the app and navigate to your profile. This will show you a list of all your comments, which you can choose individually and delete as you need to. This is the most careful and selective way to delete your Reddit history.

It’s not uncommon for social-media users to prune their Twitter and Facebook feeds before meeting a significant other’s family or going for a big job interview. It’s less likely somebody high-stakes will learn your Reddit handle compared to the more “social” social networks, but you should still use discernment — and the delete option, if necessary — when posting there.

If nothing else, remember that doxxing — finding out the personal details about somebody based on things they’ve posted online — has been problematic on social-media websites over these last politically charged years. Doxxing can also be a first step toward being hacked or having your identity stolen.

How to Delete Your Reddit Account

The most complete and foolproof way to delete your Reddit history — and be sure there’s no trace of your comments, messages, and search history on any local device or on Reddit’s servers — is to delete your account entirely.

This is simple to do, but make sure you understand the ramifications first.

Simply start on the Reddit homepage and select your avatar to invoke the drop-down menu. From here, select “User settings.” On the next page, navigate to the bottom of the “Account” tab and find the “DELETE ACCOUNT” option. Reddit rightfully presents it in all caps so you have another reminder of the permanence of your next actions.

Again, this is the nuclear option — but it’s a simple way to immediately delete your Reddit history and all the rest of the activities, web integrations, and public comments associated with it.

Now You Know How to Delete Your Reddit History

Now you know a few ways, of varying severity, to purge some or all of your Reddit history. Deleting one’s Reddit history might be done for a variety of reasons, including the aforementioned worries of identity theft, but clearing the slate isn’t difficult to do. Try to remember that the best way to interact with Reddit or any website like it is to use extreme caution before posting anything, using a unique password for just that password, and never revealing personal information to anybody online who you can’t absolutely trust.