AutoModerator

AutoModerator, commonly called AutoMod, is a built-in Reddit bot that automatically enforces rules each subreddit's moderators define. It runs in the background of active communities, evaluating every new post and comment against a custom ruleset and taking actions such as removing, filtering, approving, reporting, or replying. Rules are written in YAML format and stored on a subreddit wiki page; each rule specifies conditions that trigger it (for example, keywords, account age, or karma thresholds) and the action to take. This lets volunteer moderators automate repetitive tasks and respond instantly at a scale humans could not match.

AutoMod began in 2012 as a third-party bot created by a Reddit user to help moderators combat spam and rule-breaking, and Reddit integrated it as an official native feature in 2015. Typical configurations restrict new or low-karma accounts, filter promotional language and banned domains, catch personal information with regex patterns, and route borderline content to a human review queue. Because its behavior is entirely determined by each team's configuration, AutoMod's effectiveness and strictness vary widely between communities, and misconfigured rules can produce false positives. It remains one of the most important tools underpinning Reddit's distributed, largely volunteer-run moderation model.