Where Markdown Works on Reddit

Reddit has two composers. The Rich Text editor is the default on reddit.com and formats through a toolbar — anything you type as Markdown stays literal. The Markdown editor, reached from the link under the composer, parses it. This single distinction is behind most “why won't my formatting work” posts.

It got sharper in 2026. Reddit's 7 May 2026 changelog records that Markdown shortcuts were removed from the iOS and Android post composer on 4 May 2026, with the comment composer to follow, and that the rich-text toolbar picked up the missing options in June. Markdown on desktop is unchanged.

Text Formatting

Emphasis follows standard Markdown. The one Reddit-specific rule: you can emphasise part of a word, but only with asterisks — underscores inside a word are left alone, so snake_case_names survive intact.

**bold** or __bold__

*italic* or _italic_

***bold italic*** or ___bold italic___

~~strikethrough~~

`inline code`

vul*pu*ta**te**

Superscript

Superscript is a Reddit extension — a caret (^) before the text. There is no subscript. The multi-word forms are where people get burned, so they are worth reading carefully.

E = mc^2

reddit ^and ^be ^reddited ^in ^return

reddit ^(and be reddited in return)

reddit ^and be reddited

Spoiler Tags

Wrap text in >! and !<. Readers see a covered bar and click to reveal it. No spaces immediately inside the markers, or the spoiler will not close.

>!the butler did it!<

The answer is >!42!<.

Headings

Reddit supports all six heading levels, plus the underline (setext) form for levels 1 and 2. A space after the hashes is required — #Heading stays as plain text.

# Heading 1

### Heading 3

###### Heading 6

Heading 1
=========

Heading 2
---------

Paragraphs and Line Breaks

Reddit joins adjacent lines into a single paragraph, which is why a typed-out list of lines arrives as one run-on block. A blank line starts a new paragraph; two trailing spaces force a break inside one.

Line one
Line two

Line one··
Line two

Line one\
Line two

Links and Autolinks

Bare URLs, subreddit names and usernames link themselves. Everything else uses standard Markdown link syntax — with the caveat that Reddit needs the URL scheme (https://, mailto:, / for a site-relative path, and a handful of others), and that link titles must be quoted rather than parenthesised.

[Reddit Inc](https://redditinc.com)

[Reddit Inc](https://redditinc.com "The company blog")

<https://www.reddit.com/r/help/>

Read [the guide][g] first.

[g]: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/

Ask in r/help or message u/reddit.

Lists

Bullets take - or *; numbered lists must start at 1. Sub-lists need at least two spaces of indent under a bullet, and at least three under a number — the number and its dot are wider than a bullet.

- First item
- Second item
* Asterisks work too

1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step

- Parent item
  - Sub-item, two spaces
  - Another sub-item
1. Parent step
   1. Sub-step, three spaces

Blockquotes

Start a line with > to quote it — the standard way to reply to part of someone's comment. One bracket carries the whole paragraph; add a bracket per level to nest.

> Only the first line needs the bracket.
The rest of the paragraph is quoted too.

> Outer quote
>
> > Nested quote inside it

> ### Quoted heading
>
> - quoted list item
> - another one

Tables

Pipe tables work on old and new Reddit. The header row is bolded automatically, and the dashed marker row underneath sets alignment: a leading colon aligns left, a trailing colon right, both centre. Columns do not need to line up in the source.

| Ticker | Investment | Profit |
|--------|------------|--------|
| BTC    | $100       | $-50   |
| ETH    | $1000      | $-500  |

| Left | Right | Center |
|:-----|------:|:------:|
| a    | b     | c      |

Code Blocks and Inline Code

Nothing inside a code region is parsed as Markdown. Reddit accepts both indented blocks (four spaces) and fenced blocks (three backticks or three tildes) — but its own compatibility guidance is to use the indented form when old Reddit readers matter, and its documentation shows indentation as the canonical code block.

Run `git status` before committing.

    fn main() {
        println!("hey")
    }

fn main() {
    println!("hey")
}

```
fn main() {
    println!("hey")
}
```

fn main() {
    println!("hey")
}

Thematic Breaks

Three or more dashes, asterisks or underscores on a line of their own draw a horizontal rule. Keep a blank line above it, or the dashes will turn the line before into a heading instead.

Above the line

---

Below the line

Above the line

***

Below the line

Escaping and HTML Entities

A backslash before a formatting character makes Reddit print it literally. This matters most when a line happens to start with a hyphen or a number, which would otherwise become a list.

\*not italic\*

\- not a list item

2 \* 3 = 6

\>! not a spoiler !\<

What Reddit Formatting Doesn't Support

Reddit implements a subset. These are the pieces people reach for and do not find — worth knowing before you spend ten minutes assuming you typed something wrong.

Common Mistakes

Once you are actually in a Markdown editor, nearly every remaining formatting complaint is one of these.

Line one
Line two

Line one··
Line two

^(three superscript words)

^three ^superscript ^words

[Reddit](www.reddit.com)

[Reddit](https://www.reddit.com)

[Reddit](https://reddit.com (Home))

[Reddit](https://reddit.com "Home")

1) First
2) Second

1. First
2. Second

The build takes 5
- 10 minutes depending on cache

The build takes 5
\- 10 minutes depending on cache

Old Reddit vs New Reddit

old.reddit.com and www.reddit.com run different parsers, and a slice of syntax lands on only one of them. If your audience is a mixed subreddit, stay in the “Both” rows.

Quick Reference

Every Reddit formatting syntax at a glance.

Frequently Asked Questions