r/RemindMeBot • u/Watchful1 • Jul 31 '25
RemindMeBot will now send chats instead of DMs. How not to miss them
TLDR, if you don't want to miss anything, start a chat with the bot and send it "hello" so it can talk to you.
A while back reddit announced they were getting rid of direct messages and everything will go through chats. I personally prefer direct messages, but it's out of my hands so I've tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. While I disagree with the move overall, I want to give a huge shoutout to the team in reddit who put in a ton of work to make it so bots can seamlessly work with chat. Also to u/champoul specifically who worked closely with me. In past years, reddit would have just skipped all that and left bots behind.
The bot has been failing to send a lot of it's notifications via chat since many people have chat turned off. If you want to keep getting notifications from the bot, you have to accept its chat.
The simplest way to make sure it keeps working is to go to u/RemindMeBot profile and click start chat, then send "hello"
Alternatively, you can check in settings -> privacy -> Who can send you chat requests and make sure it's either on everyone, accounts older than 30 days, or u/RemindMeBot is in the whitelist.
As a final note, if the bots message is still showing up as read after you click on it, try clicking on a different chat and back to the bot a few times. That usually clears it. You can also complain about this in r/bugs if it's affecting you.
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u/spacemate Jul 31 '25
Wow that'll hurt my use of old.reddit and apollo - literally no chat on both the platforms i use
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u/Watchful1 Jul 31 '25
Chat works fine on old reddit. And it should continue to come through as messages on apollo. I'd still recommend manually sending it hello once to make sure it doesn't get blocked.
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u/Eglwyswrw Aug 01 '25
And it should continue to come through as messages on apollo
Oh so 3rd party devs won't have to change anything, Chat -> PM will convert automagically?
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u/After_Self5383 Aug 02 '25
it should continue to come through as messages on apollo.
Is this feature specific to apollo, or do you know if it works with Boost too?
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u/TheGreatNathan Aug 03 '25
Yes it works with Boost. If you said hello to the bot with chat it should send you a message in your inbox.
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u/Joe-Cool Aug 03 '25
Looks like it also works in RedReader. It looks a bit wonky but all chat message are there.
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u/MadLibrary Aug 01 '25
So from what I understand, you still type in the remind me command in whatever post you want, but now the notification will come through the chat. To have the bot reply to you, you need an active chat existing between you and the bot.
Have I got that right?
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u/Other_World Jul 31 '25
This really sucks. I liked this bot, but don't participate in chat. I disable it with RES.
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u/LeBaux Aug 01 '25
Reddit is envious of Discord and wants some of that pie but it will never happen. Not only the chat is awful, redditors just don't want to chat with each other.
CEOs are the reason why we cant have nice things.
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u/Spook404 Aug 01 '25
it's funny because any time I've had an interaction over reddit chat the conclusion after 10 messages is "should we move this to discord?"
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u/p0358 Aug 03 '25
Well maybe it wouldn’t be like this so much, I’d they didn’t decide to just nuke the whole chat history for no reason, and they keep doing some weird shenanigans with it that nobody understands. Nobody’s gonna seriously chat on a platform like that which gives you zero confidence in that it won’t evaporate in a few moments, and you won’t even know who you talked to.
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u/EthanDC15 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Fully agree with this sentiment. In my 4 years on this account, engaging daily, being in several highly active subs, I’ve made maybe 3 internet buddies? And it’s funny cause one’s politics, one’s a stoner, and the other is a gamer. Couldn’t be less alike with each other lmao.
Fully agree; CEO’s are worse than 1-ply and a stomach ache.
Edits for spelling
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u/dtlux1 Aug 04 '25
I didn't even know Reddit had a chat until they forced it on me. I also can't access it on anything except the official Reddit app because they failed to add the feature to Old Reddit and I can't access New Reddit at all.
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u/Ihavetoleavesoon Aug 01 '25
100% this corporations suck and Ceo gave himself a million dollar bonus.
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Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
They've made it clear this place is not a safe space for a lot of controversial discussions that people have IRL all the time. Which is fine. Whatever. If there's a strike against my account for upvoting a questionable Luigi post, so be it. But why would anyone want to have very private, personal chats, where people are really honest, on a site like this? Doesn't make any sense.
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u/Anon-fickleflake Aug 02 '25
Why envious of discord? Is discord popular? Isnt it for gaming?
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u/silentrawr Aug 01 '25
Reddit and u/Spez (fuck him, btw) love to choose the most idiotic of potential options time after time, all for whatever aims they have instead of going with what the users would prefer.
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u/chef-nom-nom Aug 01 '25
Probably planning to inject ads into chats.
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u/KakeLin Aug 05 '25
probably? are you kidding? it's gonna be guaranteed. why the hell else would they do this? nobody at all benefits from this stupid idea except the advertisers whose ads will show up in chat.
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u/a__new_name Aug 01 '25
Why all the negativity? Let's say something nice. Thanks to u/Spez I know one German word more than I would without him.
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u/fatboychummy Aug 01 '25
I use Boost and it doesn't support chats. Guess I won't be using this bot anymore either.
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u/Joe-Cool Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Same. But I use RedReader. Sad times.
EDIT: interesting https://reddit.com/comments/1mdsjy1/comment/n686kiq
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u/Sophira Aug 01 '25
Unfortunately, this is a change that Reddit made, so you won't be able to use the old private messages as you'd like to. As I understand it, you will have to use chat for new private messages. (Unless you use a third-party app.)
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u/EvoRalliArt Aug 01 '25
I'm still using Joey for Reddit and it doesn't have chat features as it was abandoned when 3rd party apps were removed. Shame, love this bot
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Jul 31 '25
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u/s_i_m_s Jul 31 '25
It will. It's all being crammed into the same system.
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Jul 31 '25
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u/PuttyRiot Aug 02 '25
Chat works like shit on old reddit mobile which is probably by design because they don’t want us actually using old reddit.
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u/Other_World Jul 31 '25
No I get replies and messages. Just not chats.
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u/s_i_m_s Jul 31 '25
The message system is being shut down this month.
Today is supposed to be the last day.3
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u/IVIayael Aug 01 '25
I usually ignore anything redditors (derogatory) have to say anyway, so not seeing their replies doesn't bother me
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u/ChrizTaylor Jul 31 '25
I love u/RemindMeBot 💜
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u/Darillium- Aug 01 '25
It makes for fun little surprises, so that I can get an update on a post that I found interesting, or see my past perspective on something that is now clear.
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u/PatchyCreations Aug 01 '25
or call out people that say they're going to do something and see if they followed through
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u/smallfried Aug 02 '25
Or seeing when people are arguing if A or B will be true. Coming back a year or more later and finding that A and B are completely irrelevant and C, G or 5 is now the case.
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u/IWasKingDoge Aug 04 '25
I personally used if a lot under a thread where everybody was saying that they genuinely believed the United States would collapse by 2026, that hasn’t come yet but it’s my most memorable use, god damn Reddit is special.
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u/J_B_La_Mighty Aug 04 '25
I checked up on someone because I wanted to know if things were going well for them (they obviously werent at the time, they committed to something and someone tagged it for reminder. It's the only time I've gone to chat with someone, they were thriving, and that really made my day lol. I was TERRIFIED they wouldn't be, but I just needed to know. Damn best of making me want resolutions.
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u/uiouyug Aug 02 '25
I told it to remind me to wipe my ass the next morning. Guess what? It longer replies to comments and DMs you instead.
Laundry day took a little longer this week.
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u/Bohzee Aug 03 '25
It longer replies to comments and DMs you instead.
Not even once? For possible new users who don't know about it?
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u/s_i_m_s Aug 03 '25
It still replies to comments in a comment
Although there are exceptions.
If the subreddit blocks the activation keyword the bot won't know you tried to call it so you won't get a confirmation nor a reminder.
If the subreddit blocks the bot itself or there has already been a request in the comments it will reply by PM (soon chat).
The r/RemindMeBot subreddit has the "have I already replied once in this thread" check disabled for testing purposes so it always replies via comment here.
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Jul 31 '25
They haven't fixed the amount of spam and scammers so I won't be turning chat on. This is unfortunate though. I lve this bot as it's great for follow ups etc.
Their choice oh well. I won't be using that cus I turned it off in the first place because of all the unsolicited spam fucking BS. So fuck it.
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u/s_i_m_s Jul 31 '25
You can set chat to whitelist only via https://www.reddit.com/settings/privacy "Who can send you chat requests" and then just manually add in who you want messages from.
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u/Watchful1 Jul 31 '25
Also even if you have incoming chat turned off, that only applies to new chat requests. If you start the chat with the bot then it can reply in the future.
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u/PremSinha Jul 31 '25
What a horrible change by reddit. You have my sympathy for having to adapt your bot to it.
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u/MobileArtist1371 Aug 01 '25
You see the other recent change where they allow
scammers/botsyou to completely hide your profile so your entire history is private?https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1l2i643/announcing_updates_to_user_profile_controls/
https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/1l2hl4l/curate_your_reddit_profile_content_with_new/
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u/SamSibbens Aug 01 '25
That's so [ Removed by Reddit ]. If you wanted to be anonymous, you used an alt. People could tell you were either genuine in debates and not a troll by checking your history
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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes Aug 02 '25
Well that solves something I've been wondering the past couple of days.
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u/Bohzee Aug 03 '25
You see the other recent change where they allow scammers/bots you to completely hide your profile so your entire history is private?
Wasn't that always a choice, to make a profile public or not?
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u/UndeadBread Aug 03 '25
Oh dang, I had no idea about this. I get people's concerns, but personally, I kinda like the idea of having that option.
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u/der_schone_begleiter Aug 03 '25
So did this happen? Can I hide my comments? I read the responses from people in the first link and I think this is ridiculous. They bring up good points. Bad people can hide their comments. Also people like me who don't know any better might think it's a good thing to hide my history then get banned from a sub because of it. So many people get banned from subs already if you disagree with something. I have got banned from subs I never commented in, because I'm in a different sub! So it's like I have to walk on egg shells to not get banned.
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u/E-Squid Jul 31 '25
How will this work going forward with, for example, links that automatically compose/send messages to the bot? I mainly use it for reminders in r/AskHistorians and they have their automod set up to reply to every post with a thing that lets you instantly set up a reminder to check back later for writeups. Is that something users will have to worry about on our end, or will it more or less be the same as before?
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u/s_i_m_s Jul 31 '25
Should be similar to before.
As far as I can tell the quick fill links have already been converted over, it works much the same but looks a bit different.
Most links transfer over but it seems to have broken some of them.
like
https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders!doesn't work properly anymore buthttps://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List+Of+Reminders&message=MyReminders!doesIIUC that's all going to be left in place since they don't have any plans on building a dedicated api for the chat system.
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u/human1023 Aug 01 '25
RemindMe! 2 minutes
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u/RemindMeBot Aug 01 '25
I will be messaging you in 2 minutes on 2025-08-01 00:56:18 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback 1
u/geologyken27 Aug 01 '25
RemindMe! 1 minute
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u/RemindMeBot Aug 01 '25
I will be messaging you in 1 minute on 2025-08-01 04:08:45 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback
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u/CitizenPremier Jul 31 '25
Thanks for the free service. Chats work in old.reddit, thankfully. But I'm not sure if I actually will click the button to view my chats... I very rarely do.
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u/dionebigode Aug 01 '25
Does it thou? I tried a link to start a chat and when I tried changing it to old. it would redirect me to the new =(
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u/Verite_Rendition Aug 04 '25
It's been working for me all this time, at least. It's basically overlaying a floating New Reddit window on top of Old Reddit, but it works.
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u/Falos425 Aug 02 '25
They couldn't kill it outright but are cleverly killing it brick by brick.
DMs worked perfectly but my browsers were far too secure to tolerate chats and other mobile-era javascript gimmicks. Scripts with greasemonkey or whatever let you have embeds (in-line image) you could rip from v.redd.it to view video files and I had any /s/sharecancer tracking links blocked.
I'm amazed the first still works, but like youtube they're becoming very 403 about the second if the request isn't very specifically from a logged-in hands-up strip-searched browser. But I suppose that's probably more about mass scrapers and trying to exclusively hoard the data (that we wrote) in the hopes of selling.
An honest thanks to Watchful1 for all the fish and for even adapting the system to those more willing to succumb to the rotting machine. In my cleanroom the contaminants will no longer work and that's considered a feature, not a bug.
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u/CitizenPremier Aug 02 '25
Sounds like you'rw trying to do a lot to avoid being tracked.
I just try to avoid saying things that overly aggravate the overlords... And deliberately misspell brand names.
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u/Falos425 Aug 02 '25
you're right, i'd be less defiant if i drank a refreshing pespi now and then, yeah
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u/Seksafero Aug 01 '25
Just wanted to say thank you for everything thus far. Just tested the new system. It works, but I resent reddit for yet another needless, annoying change to make the world a slightly more obnoxious place.
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u/repocin Aug 01 '25
Ugh, I'd forgotten all about this stupid idea they had.
Who even uses the chat aside from scammers? It's horrible.
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u/dfinkelstein Aug 01 '25
Idk. I don't hate it...which I realize makes me sound like an early adopter of fascism. And I'll be the first person to say that I normally hate all of this sort of stuff. I'm sure once they get rid of the regular messaging, I'll be deleting this comment.
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u/DurchEins Aug 01 '25
The bug with "Unread" remains for me, even if I tap on other chats several times and then return. So Fix helps me to hide the chats with the bot. The RemindMe chat reappears anyway when there is a new message.
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u/Watchful1 Aug 01 '25
That's concerning. Are you on android or iOS? Could you post about this in r/bugs? The more people that complain to the admins about it the more likely they are to fix it.
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u/JunWasHere Aug 01 '25
FYI it is WAY too easy now to click the "delete all your reminders" link and have it sent into chat. Before, you had to confirm to send the message, but now it just sends it. I just mistook it for something else and had to redo all my reminders.
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u/Watchful1 Aug 02 '25
Hmm, for me when I click one of the message links it opens a new screen and then I have to click send. What happens for you?
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u/JunWasHere Aug 02 '25
It spits the RemoveAll command into the chat. No new screen, no warning.
For context, I am on the mobile app.
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u/Lauris024 Aug 02 '25
What about creating a subreddit where the bot simply makes comments/posts tagging the user as an alternative in case the message fails to send?
I disabled chat for obvious reasons, but kept PM/DMs open.
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u/Watchful1 Aug 03 '25
Generally speaking I treat reminders as private, so I wouldn't want to post them publicly.
The PM/DMs system is going away completely.
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u/ashsimmonds Aug 02 '25
This is so dumb. I have dozens of unread "chat" messages because I stopped reading them after the 500th OnlyFans spam. At least with PMs I was able to limit who could contact me.
Fuck all this.
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u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready Aug 03 '25
Reddit still doesn't even have a link to chats, there's no way to use chats at all, so this isn't a solution.
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u/Watchful1 Aug 03 '25
Not sure what you mean. I can use chats fine.
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u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready Aug 03 '25
I'm not sure what you mean, there is no "chats" feature to use. All there is is notifs & messages.
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u/der_schone_begleiter Aug 03 '25
So I messaged the bot Hello. It messaged back hello. Now it has a red dot like I have an unread message. It won't go away. How do I make the red dot go away. I don't like this update.
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u/Watchful1 Aug 03 '25
If the bots message is still showing up as read after you click on it, try clicking on a different chat and back to the bot a few times. That usually clears it. You can also complain about this in r/bugs if it's affecting you.
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u/duel_wielding_rouge Aug 03 '25
I clicked the profile but do not see a start chat option.
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u/5p4n911 Jul 31 '25
Wait, so you created u/UpdateMeBot too? That's great, never would have figured without that paragraph where it remained UpdateMe
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u/chef-nom-nom Jul 31 '25
It took me a minute to figure out not to put the u-slash in front of UpdateMeBot and RemindMeBot when entering usernames of who can send me chat requests.
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u/no_talent_ass_clown Aug 01 '25
Thanks for this, I have now added both and turned off chats for everyone else. What a boondoggle.
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u/VaraNiN Jul 31 '25
A while back reddit announced they were getting rid of direct messages and everything will go through chats.
I used to love this website, man :(
Not long until they'll kill support for RES and/or old.reddit.com I wager
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u/bespoke_tech_partner Aug 01 '25
"As a final note, if the bots message is still showing up as read after you click on it, try clicking on a different chat and back to the bot a few times. That usually clears it. You can also complain about this in r/bugs if it's affecting you."
What does this mean? Message still showing up as read?
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u/de_rats_2004_crzy Aug 01 '25
So I messaged “hello” and it replied back “I couldn't find anything in your message.”
So I guess it’s working?
Though in this thread I did a 1 minute reminder and it sent me a message instead of a chat. Maybe my account hasn’t been moved out of messages yet by Reddit? Idk.
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u/WhoRoger Aug 01 '25
So Reddit has a chat API now?
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u/s_i_m_s Aug 01 '25
No, they just redirected the PM API to chat.
AFAIK they still have no intention of building an API for chat.
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u/Actual_Surround45 Jul 31 '25
Just adding a "fuck reddit" because chat fucking sucks, it's not dark-mode and so it hurts to read. Thanks, fucking reddit. Deletemy account again for saying fuck you, that's fine.