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You are shadowbanned on Reddit if your profile loads for you while logged in but shows "page not found" to anyone logged out. Paste a username below and the checker runs that exact logged-out test in seconds.
A clean result means the problem is not sitewide. If posts still vanish, it is almost always a subreddit-level filter (AutoModerator, Crowd Control, or Reddit's reputation and ban evasion filters), and the fix is a message to that community's mods, not an admin appeal.
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Free, no signupMarket on Reddit without the bans
Shadowbans usually follow link-heavy, repetitive posting. MediaFast checks every post against Reddit and subreddit rules before you publish. Or our team posts for you.
Not sure which one fits? Compare every plan side by side further down this page.
How to check
The checker above answers it in one click. Here are all three ways to confirm it yourself, from fastest to most thorough.
You are shadowbanned if your Reddit profile loads for you while you are logged in, but returns "page not found" to anyone who is logged out. The checker above tests exactly that: it queries the public Reddit endpoint the same way a logged-out visitor would, so a "not found" result means your posts and comments are silently hidden from everyone else.
Paste your username without the "u/" and press check. If the result says the profile is not visible, you are shadowbanned. This is the fastest shadowban check because it hits the same public endpoint Reddit shows to logged-out users, with no login or API key.
Copy your profile URL, reddit.com/user/yourname, and open it in a private or incognito browser window where you are not logged in. If it shows your posts, you are fine. If it returns a 404 or an empty profile, that is a shadowban. This is the manual version of the same test and a good way to double-check the tool.
Reddit has a community, r/ShadowBan, where you comment and an automated bot replies telling you whether your account is shadowbanned or filtered. It is slower than the checker but useful as a third confirmation, and it can sometimes distinguish a full shadowban from a partial content filter.
Under the hood
Three checks run on public data only. Every possible result is decoded in the table below, with the exact next step.
We request your profile the way a logged-out visitor would. If it returns a 404 but works for you, you are shadowbanned.
We look at up to 5 of your most recent posts. Posts that exist but are missing from the public listing are a strong sign of a filter.
We also look at up to 5 of your most recent comments, since comment filtering is how many shadowbans first show up.
| Signal (what the tool sees) | What it means | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Profile loads normally when logged out | Account is not shadowbanned. Your content is publicly visible to everyone. | No action needed. If engagement is still low, the issue is content quality or subreddit fit, not a ban. |
| Profile returns 404 when logged out but is visible to you | Classic shadowban. Reddit's public API returns "not found" for your username, meaning other users cannot see your account or posts. | Stop posting immediately. Submit an appeal at reddit.com/appeal. Review the 7 common causes listed below. |
| Posts appear in /new of a subreddit when logged out | Your account is fine and those specific posts are not filtered. AutoModerator has not removed them. | Continue posting. Monitor post performance. If posts show up in /new but vanish within minutes, a mod may be manually removing them. |
| Posts missing from /new and not visible in incognito | That specific post was removed or filtered, either by AutoModerator, a Safety Filter, or a mod. Your account itself may still be healthy. | Check the subreddit's rules and repost after adjusting. If this happens across multiple subreddits, run the full shadowban check. |
| Profile visible logged out but shows "suspended" banner | Account suspension, not a shadowban. This is a harder penalty and is visible to the public. | Appeal at reddit.com/appeal. Suspensions are harder to reverse than shadowbans. Do not open a new account to get around it, that counts as ban evasion. |
| Username not found (account does not exist) | Either the username was typed incorrectly, the account was deleted, or it was never created. | Double-check the spelling of the username and run the test again. |
Comparison
Reddit has five separate ways your content can go quiet: one sitewide and silent, three at the subreddit level, and one full account lock. Tell them apart so you use the right fix.
| Restriction | What it is | Can you see your own content | Who notices | How to confirm | How to fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadowban | Site-wide spam filter applied silently by Reddit admins. All your posts and comments are hidden from everyone except you. | Yes. You see everything as normal, which is why it is so easy to miss. | Nobody. Other users, mods, and even you get no notification. | Check your profile URL while logged out or in incognito. If it returns 404 or shows no posts, you are shadowbanned. | Submit an appeal at reddit.com/appeal, within six months of the action. |
| Subreddit ban | A specific subreddit mod bans your account from that community only. You can still post everywhere else. | No. You get an error message when you try to post in that subreddit. | You receive a ban notification from the subreddit mod team via Reddit inbox. | Try posting or commenting in that subreddit. You will see an explicit ban message. | Message the mod team of that subreddit to appeal. Subreddit-level, so Reddit admins cannot help. |
| Account suspension | A site-wide ban issued by Reddit admins for rule violations. Your account is publicly marked as suspended. | No. You cannot use the account normally. | Everyone. Your profile page shows a suspension banner to all visitors. | Visit your profile while logged out. A banner reading "this account has been suspended" appears. | Appeal at reddit.com/appeal. Permanent suspensions are rarely reversed unless an error was made. |
| Spam filter / removal | AutoModerator or a mod removes a specific post or comment for breaking a subreddit rule. Your account itself is fine. | Yes, with a "removed" label visible only to you. Others cannot see the post. | Mods see the removed content in the mod queue. You may get a removal notification. | Check that specific post URL while logged out. It shows removed or simply does not appear in the feed. | Repost after fixing what triggered the rule. Or message mods to request the post be approved. |
| Crowd Control filtering | A per-subreddit safety setting moderators turn on that collapses comments or filters posts from accounts not yet trusted in that community. Per Reddit's own Crowd Control documentation, mods pick a threshold: Moderate filters negative-karma accounts, High adds new accounts, and Maximum adds non-subscribers too. | Yes. Your comment posts normally for you. Other members see it collapsed, or a filtered post sits in the mod queue until approved. | Only that subreddit's moderators, who see Crowd Control items expanded and labeled in mod view. | Open the thread logged out or from another account. If it is collapsed or missing in that one subreddit only, while everything else you post is fine, that is Crowd Control, not a shadowban. | Build karma and account age inside that community, or ask its mod team to add you as an approved user. Reddit admins cannot lift it. |
Founders who grew on Reddit
Real posts from founders who used Reddit to find their first users, without burning their accounts.
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Reddit policy, updated March 2026
A shadowban is the silent version. When Reddit acts openly on an account, its published policy follows a fixed escalation, with a six-month appeal window.
Reddit's Content Moderation, Enforcement, and Appeals page (last updated March 29, 2026) lays out how account-level penalties escalate. Knowing where you sit on this ladder tells you how much room you have left before a mistake becomes permanent.
The first rung for many violations. The account keeps working, but the strike is on record.
A temporary account ban. Reddit notifies the account and explains how to appeal.
A longer temporary ban for repeat violations after an earlier strike.
The final rung. Some severe violations skip straight here with no warning or temporary ban first.
You can appeal an enforcement action within six months of the notification. Past that, the door closes.
Reddit may limit how many times one decision can be appealed, and may pause processing for people who file frequent unfounded appeals.
Reddit uses in-house LLMs to review some flagged content, and removes high-confidence violations automatically.
Reddit's account status overview adds two practical details: a banned account receives an inbox message with appeal steps, and a security-locked account is a different state entirely that you fix by resetting your password, not by appealing. If your posts, comments, and profile simply stop showing up with no message at all, Reddit says the account may have been flagged for spam or inauthentic activity. That silent case is the one this checker is built for.
Decision tree
Four yes/no questions, based on the detection methods r/ShadowBan's moderator wiki documents.
Source: r/ShadowBan's own moderator wiki.
Step 1. Is the problem site-wide, or limited to one subreddit?
Limited to one subreddit everything you post elsewhere is fine. This is a subreddit ban, AutoModerator filter, Safety Filter, or Crowd Control, not a shadowban. Check the comparison table above to tell those apart, then stop here.
Site-wide nothing shows up anywhere. Continue to Step 2.
Step 2. Log out, or open an incognito window, and load reddit.com/user/yourusername. Does it 404 or say "nobody here goes by that name"?
Yes. That is the classic shadowban signature per r/ShadowBan's own detection guide. Run the checker at the top of this page to confirm, then use the appeal template below.
No, it loads normally. Continue to Step 3.
Step 3. Does that same logged-out profile show a public "suspended" banner?
Yes. Sitewide account suspension, not a shadowban. Appeal at reddit.com/appeal under Reddit's Content Moderation, Enforcement, and Appeals policy, which allows up to six months to appeal.
No. Continue to Step 4.
Step 4. While logged in, open reddit.com/appeal. Does it tell you that you cannot appeal at this time?
Yes, cannot appeal. Per r/ShadowBan's own login-based check, that message means your account is in good standing. The problem is content quality, subreddit fit, or a one-off removal, not an account-level restriction.
No, it lets you proceed. That confirms a flagged account. Submit the appeal now using the template below.
Method matrix
No single test catches everything. A profile checker sees sitewide problems, while item-level tools see subreddit removals. Use the right one for your symptom.
| Method | What it detects | Needs your login | Sees subreddit filters | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This checker (top of page) | Sitewide shadowban or suspension, via the logged-out profile plus up to 5 recent posts and 5 recent comments | No | No | Seconds |
| Incognito profile visit | Sitewide shadowban (profile 404) or public suspension banner | No | No | About a minute |
| r/ShadowBan test comment | Sitewide shadowban, and sometimes whether your comments are being filtered | Yes (you post) | Partly | Minutes |
| Reveddit lookup | Which of your individual posts and comments were removed by mods (not ones you deleted yourself) | No | Yes, per item | Seconds |
| reddit.com/appeal while logged in | Whether the account has an active admin action you can appeal | Yes | No | About a minute |
| Fresh-subreddit comment test | Comment in a community you have never used, then open the thread logged out. Visible there but hidden in your usual subs means a local filter, not a shadowban | Yes (you post) | Yes | Minutes |
Reveddit is the best complement to a profile checker: enter a username and it lists content that moderators removed, while leaving out anything you deleted yourself. It also offers a real-time browser extension that alerts you when something you posted gets removed. Pair the two and you can tell a sitewide shadowban from a single aggressive subreddit in under a minute.
The data
Reddit does not publish a shadowban rate, but its transparency and help documentation show how much of its moderation is spam enforcement.
Per Reddit's own account status guidance, an account whose posts, comments, and profile stop showing up as expected has typically been flagged for spam or inauthentic activity, which is the plain-language version of a shadowban.
66.5%
of all content Reddit admins removed platform-wide in January to June 2024 was classified as spam, the largest single enforcement category by far.
View the report6 months
is the appeal window Reddit gives you after an enforcement action, per its own content moderation and enforcement policy.
Read the policyr/ShadowBan
is the community-run subreddit for a manual second opinion: post there and members cross-check whether your recent posts and comments are publicly visible, and its wiki documents the full detection and appeal process.
View the communityA quick creator-focused rundown of why Reddit shadowbans and suspends accounts without warning, and the first things to check before assuming it is a false flag.
Myth vs fact
Most bad advice about shadowbans predates Reddit's Safety Filters. Each fact below links to the Reddit help page it comes from.
If my posts disappear, I must be shadowbanned.
Reddit runs several subreddit-level Safety Filters (ban evasion, Crowd Control, reputation, harassment, mature content, adult content promoters) that hold content for moderator review in one community. Your profile stays public, so a profile checker comes back clean.
Karma is the only number that decides whether I get filtered.
The reputation filter works from your Contributor Quality Score, which Reddit says is informed by karma, account verification, and other account signals. It filters by behavior, not by what the post says, and approved users in that subreddit are not caught.
A brand-new account is a clean slate.
The ban evasion filter uses signals about how people connect to Reddit, not post content, and mods can set it to look back weeks, months, or up to a year. Reddit also says it is not 100% accurate, so false positives happen.
Once a filter flags me, I am stuck forever.
For the ban evasion filter, flagged content keeps getting filtered until a moderator approves your content three times or adds you as an approved user. A polite modmail asking for review is the fastest path out.
Spamming the appeal form makes Reddit respond faster.
Reddit's enforcement and appeals policy says it may limit how many times a decision can be appealed and may suspend appeal processing for people who file frequent unfounded appeals.
A human admin reviews every flag.
The same policy says Reddit uses in-house large language models to review some flagged content, and high-confidence violations are removed automatically. That is why a single spammy pattern can trigger action with no human in the loop.
Account safety
A shadowban means every post, comment, and link you share is invisible. Weeks of work, gone, and most marketers do not even know it happened.
Unlike a regular ban, Reddit never tells you about a shadowban. You keep posting and nobody sees it. You only find out when engagement drops to zero.
Even after a successful appeal, rebuilding trust with Reddit's spam filters takes time. Your posting frequency and engagement patterns must change completely.
Following safe posting patterns from day one is dramatically easier than recovering from a shadowban. One spammy burst can trigger it.
Use this detector. Check if your profile is visible when logged out. Test in an incognito window. If your posts get zero engagement for days, something is wrong.
Go to reddit.com/appeal. Be honest about what you did and explain if it was unintentional. Use the template below.
Once the account is cleared, post slowly and only where your content fits. MediaFast helps by finding subreddits that match your product and checking their rules before you post, while you keep writing your own comments.
Root causes
Reddit's spam detection is automated, and sometimes it makes mistakes. Knowing which signals trigger it lets you avoid every one of them.
Posting the same link to multiple subreddits. Reddit's spam systems treat identical URLs dropped across many communities in a short window as link spam. Fix: post a link only where it truly fits, write a unique post for each community, and space posts out across days instead of hours.
Bad comment-to-post ratio. Accounts that only post links and never comment or engage look like bots. Fix: genuinely participate in communities before and between any promotional posts, including threads that have nothing to do with your product.
Posting from a VPN or shared IP address. Connection signals matter: Reddit's ban evasion filter explicitly looks at how accounts connect to Reddit. If an IP was previously tied to a banned account, your new posts can get extra scrutiny. Fix: post from your normal home or office connection and never route around a ban.
Duplicate link submissions. Submitting a URL that has already been posted to the same subreddit, especially recently, is a common spam trigger. Fix: search the subreddit for your URL before posting. If the link exists, add value in that thread as a comment rather than creating a new post.
Low karma on a new account. Many large subreddits set minimum karma and account age thresholds through AutoModerator, and the exact numbers vary by community. Accounts that keep posting before meeting them get removed again and again. Fix: spend a few weeks building karma organically in smaller communities before targeting major ones.
Posting velocity spikes. Going from zero posts a day to ten posts a day is a bot-like pattern, especially on a new account. Fix: ramp up slowly, one or two posts a day at first, and grow as your karma and account age grow.
Linking to banned or flagged domains. If a domain has been reported as spam across many subreddits, posts containing it can get filtered automatically. Fix: search your domain on Reddit to see how it has been received. For new projects, avoid reusing a domain tied to a previously banned account.
Appeal template
Submit this at reddit.com/appeal. Fill in the brackets. Keep it short and honest.
This template is free to copy and use. If you would rather not fill in the brackets yourself, the Reddit ban appeal generator turns it into a personalized draft in seconds.
Subject: Shadowban appeal, u/[your_username] Hi Reddit, My account u/[your_username] appears to have been shadowbanned. I noticed because my posts stopped receiving any engagement and my profile does not load when I check it logged out. I believe this happened because [brief honest reason, e.g.: "I posted the same link to several subreddits on the same day" or "I was using a VPN that may have been flagged"]. I was not aware this violated the spam policy. I have now read the Reddit Content Policy in full and understand what I did wrong. Going forward, I will [specific change, e.g.: "space my posts at least 48 hours apart and engage in comments before posting any links"]. I have been a genuine member of [1-2 subreddits you participate in] and I would like to continue contributing. I am not a bot and I am not affiliated with any vote manipulation network. Please consider lifting the shadowban. I am happy to answer any questions you have about my posting history. Thank you, u/[your_username]
Specific, honest explanation. Acknowledgment of the exact rule broken. A concrete change you will make. Under 200 words.
Denying anything happened. Blaming Reddit. Vague promises like "I will follow the rules." Copy-pasted templates without personalization.
Wait time: Reddit does not publish a response time. r/ShadowBan's own moderator guide notes it is common for the process to take multiple attempts over days or weeks, and says repeating an unanswered appeal at most once every 24 hours is fine. Stay well short of spam, since Reddit's policy lets it pause processing for people who file frequent unfounded appeals.
Glossary
Mods, admins, and Reddit's help center use these terms inconsistently. Here is what each one means.
A site-wide, silent restriction applied by Reddit admins. Your account remains technically active but all posts and comments are invisible to logged-out users and most logged-in users. You never receive a notification. This is the most damaging ban type for marketers and content creators because it wastes time and effort without any warning.
A less severe form of restriction where only certain types of content, usually link posts or specific post formats, are filtered. The account is not fully shadowbanned but promotional content may be silently removed. Often caused by a single subreddit's AutoModerator rather than Reddit admins.
A bot built into every subreddit that moderators configure to automatically remove or report posts and comments matching certain rules. It is subreddit-specific, not account-wide. Common triggers include minimum karma requirements, account age requirements, specific keyword filters, and link domain blacklists. AutoModerator removals are not shadowbans but they look identical from your perspective.
The point system Reddit uses to measure account credibility. Comment karma comes from upvotes on comments; post karma comes from upvotes on link and text posts. Higher karma signals a legitimate, established user. Most large subreddits use minimum karma thresholds to block spammers. Low karma plus high posting frequency is one of the fastest paths to getting filtered.
Creating or using a new or alternate Reddit account after your main account was banned, in order to continue activity where you were banned. This is a direct violation of Reddit's rules and, if detected, usually leads to the new account being banned too. Reddit's ban evasion filter looks at how accounts connect to Reddit to spot it.
A removed post was taken down by a moderator or AutoModerator. It stays in the mod queue but is invisible to other users. A deleted post was removed by the author themselves. Both show as missing from the public feed, but they mean very different things: removed content often indicates a rule violation, while deleted content was a voluntary user action and has no impact on your account standing.
If you want to avoid triggering any of these filters in the first place, tools like MediaFast find the subreddits where your product fits and check their posting rules for you, so you spend time on content instead of manually tracking karma thresholds and cooldowns.
Keep checking
A shadowban is one of several account health signals. These free checks and guides cover the rest.
Confirm a username exists and is not deleted or renamed before you assume a shadowban.
Low account age is one of the top causes of filtering. Check yours before you post in a new subreddit.
The full enforcement ladder, from a single removal to a permanent sitewide ban, in one guide.
Turn the template above into a personalized appeal in seconds if a shadowban is confirmed.
Weekly tips on staying unbanned, avoiding shadowbans, and keeping your Reddit account in good standing. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
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Straight answers on shadowbans, filters, appeals, and what this checker can and cannot see.
A shadowban is a restriction where your posts and comments are automatically marked as spam by Reddit's filters. You can still see your own content, but it's invisible to everyone else on the platform.
The tool requests your public profile data the way a logged-out visitor would, then looks at up to 5 of your most recent posts and 5 of your most recent comments. If the profile comes back 'not found' while it still exists for you when logged in, you are very likely shadowbanned.
Common reasons include posting the same link too many times, posting from a VPN or shared IP, a new account posting rapidly, low karma behavior, or being mistaken for a bot by Reddit's automated spam filters.
The only official way to fix a shadowban is to submit an appeal to the Reddit admins via reddit.com/appeal. Be honest and explain if you think it was a mistake.
The fastest way to check if a Reddit account is shadowbanned in 2026 is to paste the username into a shadowban test tool like this one. The detector queries the public Reddit endpoint without authentication, mirroring what every other user sees. If the profile returns as 'not found' while you can still see it logged in, the account is shadowbanned. The test is instant and free.
This tool uses the same detection method as the most reliable shadowban checkers: a logged-out request to the Reddit public profile endpoint. Many older shadowban testers stopped working when Reddit changed its API in 2024 to 2025. The MediaFast shadowban detector is updated for the current Reddit API behavior and runs in real time, with no signup and no API key.
Shadowban detector, shadowban tester, shadowban check, and shadowban test tool all refer to the same kind of utility: a service that queries Reddit's public-facing data to determine whether a username's posts and comments are silently hidden. This tool covers all those use cases in one place.
Reddit does not publish a reliable appeal success rate. If your account was flagged for spam or inauthentic activity, Reddit directs affected users to log in, open the official appeals page, and submit an appeal if they believe the action was a mistake. Treat any percentage shared by a third party as anecdotal rather than a benchmark.
Most third-party Reddit shadowban detection tools use the same underlying technique (public endpoint query). The differentiators are speed, reliability after Reddit API changes, and whether the tool also explains why a shadowban likely happened and what to do next. Reveddit is a useful complement because it shows which of your individual posts and comments were removed by moderators, which a profile check cannot see.
Yes. This works as a general Reddit ban checker, not just a shadowban checker. When you paste a username, the tool tells you which state the account is in: fully visible (no ban), returns 'not found' while logged out (a shadowban), or shows a public suspension banner (an account suspension). A subreddit-specific ban is the one thing a username checker cannot see, because that block only shows when you try to post in that community.
To check if you are shadowbanned on Reddit for free, paste your username into the checker above and press check. If your profile loads normally in the result, you are not shadowbanned. If it returns 'not found' even though you can still see your own profile while logged in, you are almost certainly shadowbanned. You can confirm the same thing manually by opening your profile URL (reddit.com/user/yourname) in a private or incognito window: if it 404s there but works when you are logged in, that is the classic 'am I shadowbanned' signature.
Yes. Log in and submit an appeal at reddit.com/appeal. Be honest and polite. Reddit's enforcement policy allows appeals within six months of the notification, and it may limit how many times one decision can be appealed, so one clear, specific appeal beats many short ones.
Open an incognito browser window and go to your profile URL (reddit.com/user/yourname). If it says the user was not found, or shows a suspended banner, the account has a sitewide restriction. If it loads fine, the problem is subreddit-level, such as AutoModerator, Crowd Control, or the reputation filter.
Yes. It only reads public data that any logged-out visitor can see. It never asks for your password and never logs in to your account.
That points to a subreddit-level filter, not a shadowban. Reddit's own Safety Filters, such as the reputation filter, ban evasion filter, and Crowd Control, can hold posts or comments for moderator review in a single community while your profile stays public everywhere else. Message that subreddit's mods rather than filing a sitewide appeal.
MediaFast is a Reddit marketing tool. It finds subreddits that fit your product, checks their rules, drafts posts for you to edit, and flags threads worth commenting in. You write and post your own comments, which keeps your account activity genuine.
If you are here to promote a product, use a rules-first playbook built for the kind of offer you are taking to Reddit.
Promote a SaaS on RedditMediaFast finds the subreddits that fit your product, checks their rules, and drafts posts you edit and publish yourself.
No time to do Reddit yourself?
