Reddit removes chat history prior to 2023: report

Social discussion platform Reddit has unexpectedly removed users' chat history prior to January 1 of this year.

Reddit users are asking why they have been directed to a changelog update from June which announced feature updates to chats, reports tech publication The Verge.

The update's main announcement didn't mention any information about data being removed, and discreetly placed a vague and short notice about the removal at the bottom.


"In an effort to have a smooth and quick transition to this new infrastructure, we will migrate chat messages sent from January 1, 2023 onward," the company said in the notice.

If someone read the note carefully until the end, it would have been apparent that everything before that date would disappear.

The day before the changelog was published, a user shared their frustration on the help subreddit, revealing that they had lost access to a three-year conversation history with a friend on the site. In response, an admin explained that legacy chats were undergoing migration to the new chat platform, but only data from 2023 would be transferred.

When another user inquired about the possibility of staying on the legacy chat, the admin claimed that such an option did not exist, emphasising Reddit's commitment to make new chats better, the report said.