Reddit is one of the largest websites on the Internet, so trying to find something on it must be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, right? Well, it may be if you just browse around Reddit aimlessly. However, if you use its search function, you may be able to get where you want to go on Reddit a bit faster. In this lesson, we’ll explain how that works.
To search Reddit
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Open your web browser of choice and go to www.reddit.com. (Logging in is optional; see our How to Post on Reddit tutorial for instructions on logging in.)
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In the upper-right portion of the screen, below the log-in box (or your user name, if you’ve already logged in), you will find the Reddit search box. Click in it, type in what you’re looking for, and then click the magnifying glass icon.
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The first results you will see are “subreddits” — specific categories of topics on Reddit — that contain your search terms in either their names or their descriptions. Click on the name of a subreddit to visit it, or click Search within [X] below a subreddit to search for your key words in posts contained within that subreddit. You can also click Subscribe to follow activity on that subreddit. Click Next or Prev at the bottom of the list of subreddits to navigate through different pages of results.
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Further down the page, you will see posts that contain your search terms, or that contain comments that have your search terms within them.
Click the drop-down menu beside “Sort By” to sort posts by relevance to your search terms, their score (i.e. how many upvotes vs. downvotes they have), how long ago they were posted, or how many comments have been posted on them.
You can also click the drop-down menu beside “Links From” to only see posts that were submitted within a certain timeline: the past hour, the past day, the past week, the past month, the past year, or anytime.
Click on a post to view it. You can also click on the submitter’s user name to see their profile, including a list of recent posts or comments that they’ve made. Additionally, you can click on the subreddit that a post was submitted to in order to visit that subreddit.
Like when viewing subreddits as search results, you can click Next or Prev at the bottom of the list of posts to cycle through different pages of results.
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If you click Advanced Search, Reddit will display some common modifiers that you can use to narrow your search. For example, typing in the sample provided — “subreddit:aww site:imgur.com dog” — will tell Reddit to search for posts that are contained within the subreddit “aww”, link to the website “imgur.com”, AND contain the word “dog” in either their descriptions or comments.
You can also click See the Search FAQ for Details to see other ways to filter your search, such as with other fields that you can specifically search in (such as “title:”), or with Boolean operators (e.g. “AND”, “OR”, or “NOT”).
That’s the skinny on how to search Reddit! Next up, we’ll tell you all about one of the most popular features of Reddit: its “ask me anything” forums!
