Reddit Spoiler Text: How to Do Spoiler Tag and Alerts on Reddit in Posts and Comments

So, you reached the end of a game or you just finished watching the finale of a popular TV series and now you want to share your experience with others on Reddit. Should you do it? As fun as it may be for you to share what you just saw on Reddit, others in your community may not find it friendly when they see your post/comment.

To help you avoid the surprise for others while still letting you post your content, Reddit offers a few spoiler tools that warn others about spoilers and hides a portion of the content you think may spoil their experience.

When should you use spoilers on Reddit?

Spoilers are intended to help others who view a post or comment avoid content that may reveal information about something that they may want to learn themselves as a surprise. For instance, if you’re in a subreddit dedicated to an ongoing TV series and you posted content parts that may reveal a scene from the latest episode, others won’t find it amusing to see this info inside the community as you might be ruining their watching experience by taking away the pleasure of surprise.

Since not everyone wants to find out what’s about to happen in a movie or TV show from someone else and would rather want to see it for themselves, Reddit gives you all the means necessary to hide your spoiler content behind an additional click. It’s part of Reddit’s unwritten etiquette that many users follow when they want to share their opinion about something they witnessed recently without making it uncomfortable for those who don’t want to see it.

By hiding the spoiler content behind an additional click, others can be wary of any hidden text or media and ignore them if they don’t wish to see it. For those who do want to see it, they just have to click on your post or comment once more and unhide its contents. Since the hidden content is a click away, if it spoils the surprise for someone, it’s on them as they were the ones to click on it.

If you plan to create a post or type a comment that may potentially reveal sensitive information about a book, TV show, or movie, you should use spoilers and spoiler tags, not just to avoid others from accidentally reading your content but to also stop this from affecting your Reddit Karma.

Spoilers vs Spoiler tags: What’s the difference?

To hide text or media that may be considered spoilers, Reddit lets you two different options to mark them as spoilers. You can either hide an entire post by marking it with a Spoiler tag or hide portions of text inside it as spoilers. If you’re wondering how these two tools are different or which one to use at a particular instance, read further.

Spoiler tags are means to hide the entire content of a post behind an additional click. These work on all kinds of Reddit posts including text, images & video, links, polls, and talk. When you upload a post with a spoiler tag, users will only see the post title at the top while the rest of your post will be hidden behind a “Click to see spoiler” banner.

No one on Reddit will be able to see your post’s contents automatically but will have to click on this banner to reveal its contents. This works even when its page is refreshed or accessed again on the mobile app as its content will always stay hidden even if you clicked on the spoiler banner before. One limitation to spoiler tags is that they can only be used for posts you create on Reddit, not comments. To hide text inside comments, you will need to use spoilers instead.

If you don’t wish to hide the entirety of a post on Reddit, you can add Spoilers to texts you want to specifically hide. This way, others on Reddit can view some portions of your post that aren’t spoilers but the parts you consider as spoilers will be hidden behind a black bar. This way, users won’t accidentally see the hidden content but can open it at their discretion when they click on this black bar which will reveal the text underneath.

The same applies to adding comments with spoilers. As explained above, since you cannot tag an entire comment as a spoiler as you do with posts using Spoiler tags, you will have to manually highlight the texts you want to be hidden with spoilers.

How to use the Spoiler Tag on Reddit to mark a post (text, image, poll, link) with Spoiler Alert

If you want to hide the entire contents of a post on Reddit, you will have to mark this post with a Spoiler tag. This option can be used to conceal all portions of a post which may include texts, images, videos, links, polls, and talks. It’s worth pointing out that spoiler tags can be used during the creation of a post as well as your existing posts (provided that they’re not too old) on Reddit.

On Reddit.com

To mark a post with a spoiler tag, you need to first create a post on your profile or subreddit by clicking the + icon from the top right portion of the page.

Inside the Create a post screen, select the type of content you want to post by clicking on the relevant tab above the Title box. Your options are – Post, Images & Video, Link, Poll, and Talk. In this instance, we’ll select Post and hide the content inside the post using the Spoiler tag.

Once you’ve chosen the type of post you want to upload, click on the Title box at the top and type a relevant title for your post.

It’s important to know that while spoiler tags will hide the contents inside your post, the title you’re about to type will remain unhidden.

Now, you can go ahead and fill out the post with the necessary content you want to share. You can add text inside the text box or insert a table, image, or video using the relevant options above this text box.

When your post is ready to be uploaded, click the + Spoiler button underneath the text box.

This will mark your post as spoilers on Reddit and you’ll see a “✔️ Spoiler” banner in place of the + Spoiler button. Once you’ve done that, you can click on Post to submit it on your profile or the subreddit you chose.

When the post is uploaded, it appears on the next page with a “Click to see spoiler” banner.

If this post had images or video, they’ll be blurred automatically and will only load up when someone clicks on them.

On Android/iOS

Marking posts with spoiler tags work in the same manner on your phone as you would on Reddit.com. You can mark both new posts as well as existing ones from the Reddit app on iOS or Android with ease. In this instance, we’ll first create a post and show you how to add a spoiler tag to it. To get started, open the Reddit app on your iPhone or Android device and go to your profile or the subreddit inside which you want to create a post.

Inside Reddit, tap on the + Create tab at the bottom to create a new post.

On the next screen, type the title of your post at the top.

Now, select the kind of post you want to create using spoiler tags. You can choose from Text, Link, Image, Video, and Poll from the “What Do You Want To Post?” section. In this instance, we’ll select Text.

Once you’ve chosen the post type, you can go ahead and fill out the post with the necessary content you want to share. When your post is ready, tap on Next at the top right corner.

On the next screen, tap on Tag as Spoiler tab under the post preview and then tap on Post at the top right corner.

When the post is uploaded, it appears on the next page with a “Spoiler” banner at the top.

If this post had images or video, they’ll be blurred automatically and will only load up when someone taps on them.

How to post texts with spoilers

If you don’t wish to hide the entire content of a post on Reddit with spoilers but only want to conceal a specific portion of text inside it, this is where you use spoilers. Unlike Spoiler tags, Spoilers can be used exclusively for hiding texts inside a post, so you won’t be able to hide images, videos, or other types of content using this option.

You can create spoiler texts across multiple parts of your post if there are more than one instances where there is sensitive information. Additionally, you will be able to add spoiler texts to existing posts you created on Reddit by simply putting it into editing mode.

On Reddit.com

To post something on Reddit with spoilers, you need to launch Reddit.com on a web browser and create a post on your profile or subreddit by clicking the + icon from the top right portion of the page.

Inside the Create a post screen, click on Post or Poll tabs from the top as these are the only kinds of posts where you can add spoiler texts.

Once you’ve chosen the type of post you want to upload, click on the Title box at the top and type a relevant title for your post. Anyone who views your post will be able to see this title, so make sure the title itself doesn’t include any spoilers.

You can then choose either of the following options to add spoilers to a desired part of the text you added to your post.

Using Spoiler button

The easiest way to add spoilers to text on a Reddit post is by using the Spoiler button. Once the post has been filled with the desired content and is ready to be uploaded, you can select the portion of the text you want to hide using the cursor. Once this portion of text has been selected, click on the Spoiler button from the toolbar above.

This will highlight the selected text with a dark grey background to indicate that this portion of the post has been highlighted.

If there are other parts in the post you want to hide, you can repeat the above step to conceal them using the Spoiler button.

Once you’ve marked the necessary text as spoilers, your post should look something like this. You can now go ahead and upload this post by clicking on Post.

When your post gets uploaded, you and the others will only see the unhidden portions by default with the hidden text concealed behind a black/grey bar.

You can unhide this hidden portion by simply clicking on this bar which will then unravel the content behind it.

Using Markdown Mode

When you create a post on Reddit, you’ll be greeted by the Fancy Pants Editor which is enabled by default. This Fancy Pants Editor is where you’ll find the Spoiler button which helps you hide texts on your post. This button, however, is just a shortcut to access Markdown mode which is the virtual language that Reddit relies on to format texts on its platform.

Inside Markdown mode, you won’t be able to use the Spoiler button but will have to follow a specific syntax to apply a spoiler on top of the text you want to hide. To format your post with spoilers, you need to use this syntax – >!spoiler!< where the text you want to hide is placed in the middle of >! and !<.

To give you an example, let’s say you’ve written the desired text inside the Create a post screen using the Fancy Pants Editor and are ready to hide texts using spoilers. For this, you need to first click on Markdown Mode at the top right corner of the Create a post text box.

When you do that, you’ll see the Markdown banner appear at the top of the text box and all the text formatting options that were previously available inside this box all disappear from the top.

Now, locate the text you want to mark as a spoiler inside your post. When you find the text you want to hide, move the cursor to the beginning of the text and type >! as a prefix.

Next, move to the end of this text and type !< as a suffix.

You can repeat this to mark other portions of text in your post as spoilers. When you’ve marked the desired text in your post, click on Post.

When your post gets uploaded, you and the others will only see the unhidden portions by default with the hidden text concealed behind a black/grey bar.

You can unhide this hidden portion by simply clicking on this bar which will then unravel the content behind it.

On Android/iOS

Although Reddit allows you to hide texts on a post as spoilers, it doesn’t offer a dedicated Spoiler button on its mobile app as it does on its web client. So, the only way to hide specific texts inside a Reddit post is via the Markdown Mode. To post something on Reddit with spoiler texts, open the Reddit app on your iPhone or Android device and go to your profile or the subreddit inside which you want to create a post.

Inside Reddit, tap on the + Create tab at the bottom to create a new post.

On the next screen, type the title of your post at the top.

Now, select the kind of post you want to create using spoiler tags. You can choose from Text and Poll from the “What Do You Want To Post?” section. In this instance, we’ll select Text.

Once you’ve chosen the post type, you can go ahead and fill out the post with the necessary content you want to share.

To hide a specific text from your post, tap at the beginning of the text you want to hide and type >! as its prefix.

Similarly, tap at the end of this text and type !< as a suffix.

You can repeat the above steps to hide other portions of text inside your post. Once done, tap on Next at the top right corner.

On the next screen, tap on Post at the top right corner.

When your post gets uploaded, you and the others will only see the unhidden portions by default with the hidden text concealed behind a black/grey bar.

You can unhide this hidden portion by simply tapping on this bar which will then unravel the content behind it.

How to comment with spoilers

Similar to what you can do with posts, Reddit also lets you add spoilers inside comments. However, you need to keep in mind that you can only add spoilers to texts inside a comment since the platform doesn’t support images or any kind of media as comments. Like with posts, comments with spoilers will be concealed behind gray bars which will reveal themselves when anyone clicks on them.

On Reddit.com

You can add spoilers to comments on Reddit in the same manner as you would add spoiler texts on posts using either the Spoiler button or Markdown Mode.

To comment on a post with spoilers, first, open Reddit.com and go to the post you want to comment inside.

Inside the “What are your thoughts?” box, type the text you want to add as your comment.

Once you’re ready with your comment, you can use either of these methods listed below to add spoilers to it.

Using Spoiler button

If you’re commenting on a Reddit post using the Fancy Pants editor, use the cursor to select the text you want to hide as spoilers. Once this text has been highlighted, click on the Spoiler button from the toolbar at the bottom of the text box.

The text you selected will now be white on top of a black background to indicate that this portion of your comment has been marked as spoilers.

You can repeat the above steps to mark other texts in your comment as spoilers. When you’re done marking the desired text as spoilers, click on Comment to submit it inside the post.

Your comment should now appear under the post with hidden texts concealed inside grey boxes.

Clicking on one of these boxes would reveal the text hidden inside of it.

Using Markdown Mode

Like with posts, you can also use Markdown mode on Reddit to hide comments as spoilers. To use it to mark spoilers in your comments, first, type the comment inside the text box under a post and then click on Markdown Mode at the bottom of the text box.

When this box switches to Markdown Mode, use the cursor to locate the text you want to hide and click at the beginning of this text. Here, type >! as a prefix.

Next, move to the end of this text and type !< as a suffix.

You can repeat this to mark other portions of text in your comment as spoilers. When you’ve marked the desired text in your post, click on Comment.

Your comment will now appear under the post with hidden texts concealed inside grey boxes.

Clicking on one of these boxes would reveal the text hidden inside of it.

On Android/iOS

The Reddit app also allows you to add comments with spoilers just like you would on its web client. To add a comment with spoilers, open the Reddit app on your iPhone or Android device and go to the post you wish to comment on.

When the post loads up on the screen, tap on the Comment icon under the post.

In the text box that appears at the bottom, type the text you want to add as your comment.

Once you’re ready with your comment, tap at the beginning of the text you want to hide and type >! as its prefix.

Similarly, tap at the end of this text and type !< as a suffix.

You can repeat the above steps to hide other portions of text inside your comment. Once you’ve done that, tap on Reply at the bottom right corner.