Tweaking settings can make Reddit a much more pleasant experience
Reddit’s decision to hike its API fees killed off great Reddit apps such as Apollo. Users forced back to the company’s own, sub-standard apps are therefore left with a poorer experience – not least because Reddit insists on shoving irrelevant content into your Home feed. However, tweaking one Reddit setting can make all this unrequested garbage disappear.
Change This Reddit Setting
Reddit is arguably the most erratic site on the internet. Many of its communities (or subreddits) are fascinating, well moderated and enriched with great reader comments. Others are complete dumpster fires, with little control over what’s posted and comment sections fueled by hatred.
Unfortunately, Reddit doesn’t want you only browsing the communities that you’ve actively subscribed to. It wants to put other content under your nose too, some of which seems designed purely to trigger you into responding. But there is a setting that makes all this unasked for stuff go away. Here’s how to find it:
- On the Reddit website, click on your profile in the top right-hand corner of the site and select User Settings
- On the settings page, choose the Feed Settings tab
- Here you will find a setting called Enable Home Feed Recommendations – switch this off
You should find that your main feed now only shows content from communities that you’re actively subscribed to. This is a global setting, so as long as you’re logged in, it should apply on any Reddit apps you might have on other devices.
Note that this doesn’t stop you browsing communities that you’re not a member of, nor does it prevent you from searching the site. It merely prevents Reddit shoving irrelevant content into your feed.
More Ways To Improve Reddit
Tell Reddit which communities you value most
If you want to further improve your home feed and give Reddit a clear steer on the communities you want to see most, don’t forget that you can select favorite subreddits.
To do this on the Reddit website, click the Home drop-down menu in the top left of the screen and it will display a list of all the communities you’re currently subscribed to. Click the little star next to a community’s name to add it as a favorite.
There are some who also prefer how Reddit used to look, before the relatively recent redesign. If you’re a fan of the old-school look, it’s still available. You simply need to set old.reddit.com as your browser bookmark instead of the regular reddit.com.
I don’t think there’s any way to revert to the old look in apps, but drop me a line if you know otherwise.
One final setting that I find useful is the ability to switch off community themes. Many communities have bizarre backgrounds and color schemes, and it can be jarring as you switch between them. If you’d prefer a consistent interface irrespective of which community you’re browsing, then open the Feed Settings mentioned above and disable community themes.
If there are only one or two community themes that you find particularly offensive, you can switch those off individually on the community’s homepage, using the settings on the right-hand side of the screen.
