Reddit is shutting down RSS and public API access. Blame AI.

AI bots are making it harder to be a human who just wants to read Reddit

The company is shutting down its RSS feeds on Nov. 13, 2026, and ending public API access in March 2027. Announced on Wednesday, Sept. 30, in a channel for moderators (and reported by TechCrunch), the changes are a response to automated scraping, but they will also affect people who use outside tools to follow conversations and manage Reddit communities

What’s happening to Reddit’s RSS feeds?

RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication, lets you subscribe to website updates and read them in a feed reader. Think of it as bringing posts from different places into one inbox, without visiting each site individually

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For Reddit users, that means following favorite subreddits or setting up moderation alerts. But the company says RSS has become a “common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse,” and is pulling the plug

Reddit recommends that moderators move common alerts to Discord Relay, an app on its developer platform, Devvit. For everyone else, the options are less promising: “If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement,” the company wrote

That leaves some readers figuring out how to keep up. “That sucks because I use a Chrome extension called RSS Feed Reeder to be notified of every new post in my subs,” wrote one user. “I don’t know how I’ll do that now on my desktop computer.” Another commenter said their team uses an RSS feed to send Reddit status updates to its moderation Discord. “It’s really important for us when we’re in the queue and Reddit goes down to get that alert,” they wrote, asking whether a developer app could replace it. “Any site clamping down on RSS is bad news,” wrote another user.

The public API is going, too

Feed readers aren’t the only tools affected. Reddit’s public API, which lets software interact with the platform, is also winding down. The company will stop accepting new requests for access on Oct. 31. Starting Jan. 12, 2027, it will begin removing access for apps and users that haven’t registered or engaged with its outreach. Remaining public access ends in March

Community bots can still have a future on Reddit — provided they move to Devvit. The company says more than 14,000 apps and bots have registered, and it’s offering migration funding and technical support while working to address remaining capability gaps

Even browsing the classic site will come with more conditions. In the coming months, Old Reddit access will be limited to logged-in moderators and logged-in users who have used it within the previous six months. Moderators are exempt from the recent-use requirement

Reddit’s conversations have become big business

These changes follow Reddit’s August announcement that third-party apps would need to move onto its developer platform. Wednesday’s update puts deadlines on that plan

The company has been closing other routes to its content, too. In August 2025, Reddit restricted the Internet Archive’s ability to archive posts, comments, and profiles, saying AI companies were collecting its content through the Wayback Machine

Reddit isn’t closing its doors to AI altogether. Its partnerships with Google and OpenAI give those companies access to its content for AI products. Taken together, these moves point to Reddit drawing tighter boundaries around its conversations. And while AI companies with licensing dealscan still get access, users who followed their favorite subreddits through RSS will have to find another way to keep up.

TopicsReddit

Deputy Digital Culture Editor

Oliators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor’s from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter

Source: mashable.com