Reddit Limits ‘Old Reddit’ Access to Fight Automated Bots

Reddit is making it harder to use its classic website design, known as “Old Reddit,” to stop automated bots and scraping. In the next few months, only people who are logged in and have used Old Reddit within the last six months will be able to access it. Moderators will be able to use it without this time limit, as long as they are logged in.

The company began requiring users to log in to Old Reddit earlier this year to reduce abuse from automated programs scraping content. While this helped, Reddit says any logged-in account could still access Old Reddit, even if they had never used it before. The new six-month rule aims to block bots that create new accounts or use old inactive ones.

This move is part of broader changes Reddit is making to protect its data and users. For example, Reddit will stop supporting RSS feeds from November 13 because these feeds have also been used for large-scale automated scraping. Moderators who rely on RSS are encouraged to switch to alternative tools like the Discord Relay Devvit app, but for regular users, there is no replacement.

Reddit is also planning to end public API access in March 2027. This affects third-party apps and bots that pull Reddit data. Developers must register their apps by January 12, 2027, or lose access. These steps come as Reddit increasingly controls how its data is used, including commercial deals with companies like Google and OpenAI.

Reddit’s CEO said in 2025 that Old Reddit would remain online as long as people used it. However, recent comments suggest the company needs to make changes because Old Reddit has become a target for abuse. Reddit emphasises that these new limits are meant to protect the site from automated abuse, not to shut down Old Reddit for genuine users or moderators.