Reddit Removes Years of Chats, Messages Before 2023—Here’s How to Retrieve your History

The new changes on Reddit have begun to take effect, and one of the things they sacrificed as they are moving to a "new architecture" is its users' chat histories and messages. Many have already raised their concern about the most recent change, with their precious conversations disappearing from the platform's Chat features.

Massive protests have been evident on Reddit for the past few months, first was about its API changes which were hidden behind a paywall, following Twitter's steps, preventing third-party apps from continuing their operations.

Reddit Removes Chat, Message History Before 2023

Several users have complained about the recent changes in Reddit which took into effect last June 30, amidst different third-party apps shutting down and leaving the platform. While different Redditors have taken their concerns via their posts over the past weeks, others have only noticed now that their chats and messages from before 2023 have completely disappeared.

This was because of the latest changes in Reddit where it is looking to move to a "new chat architecture" that was announced by the company last month. It explained that removing old messages from the platform would result in a "smooth and quick transition" to the latest experience.

Redditors who have precious moments or message logs with friends, acquaintances, or other platform users before January this year are all long gone, furthering the rift between them and the management.

Here's How to Retrieve Your Messages on Reddit

That being said, a report from Mashable claims that there is a way to retrieve old messages on Reddit despite the company removing them from the recent transition.

Users need to submit an online form that asks the company to retrieve specific conversations and messages from the archive and bring them to the latest experience. It is unknown how long this request would take, but it certainly is an extra step from before.

Reddit's Massive Changes and Controversy

Towards the end of May, there have been significant tremors on Reddit after it announced that it has decided to change its API policies, asking those who access it certain fees based on their usage. This meant that those who have enjoyed it for free all these years will need to pay moving forward, causing one of the largest Reddit apps, Apollo, and other significant names to shut down.

Massive protests appeared on Reddit through subreddits and Redditors going on a strike, and this was through a site blackout which took the platform down as many have taken a stand.

Other subreddits only participated for 48 hours, but others have done so independently, but despite all this, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman remains unfazed.

Reddit faced its users' complaints and protests but did not really do anything about them, despite moderators also joining the cause and disrupting activities on the platform. With the recent changes, chat, and message history were also removed by the company and disrupting user experience yet again, with a somewhat retrieval process set up by the company.