r/toolbox • u/eritbh ...and 1 more » • Mar 04 '26
[notice] Toolbox is no longer maintained
tl;dr
- No further updates will be made to Toolbox.
- Toolbox will remain available in its current state, but eventually it will break.
- I explicitly intend not to pass control of Toolbox to any new maintainers, and discourage forking it to maintain fixes for yourself or your team. Toolbox is inherently unsustainable software, given the current state of Reddit as a platform.
- Seek alternatives to Toolbox in your teams' workflows; don't be blindsided when it eventually dies for good. Talk with each other and share your solutions.
Hi, I'm /u/eritbh. I've been the sole maintainer of Toolbox since /u/creesch stepped away from Reddit nearly three years ago - "maintainer" being a rather generous way to credit the occasional hotfixes I've put out. I've been putting off writing this post for weeks so let's just get something out there, yeah?
Lots of things have changed since I first started contributing to this project in.... gods, 2016? By now, I'm not even a mod myself, and I haven't been for the better part of a decade. My personal interest in this project hasn't really been there for a long time. And even if I did want to spend more time on Toolbox, Reddit's technical direction has been changing too, making maintenance of an extension like this unsustainable for a single dev.
So - today's the day. Toolbox will no longer receive updates going forward, and the Github repo will be archived shortly. The last versions are v6.1.25 (stable) and v7.0.0.17 (beta). These versions will remain available on extension stores indefinitely, and they include bugfixes that allow Toolbox to mostly continue working for now. But eventually, some other site change will break Toolbox again, and when that happens, it will not be fixed.
Does this mean Toolbox will never work on Shreddit?
Yeah. Sorry.
Does this mean Toolbox will never work with the new modmail interface?
Yes, because the new modmail interface is part of Shreddit.
Last month, the announced sunsetting of mod.reddit.com threatened to break Toolbox. Toolbox previously used auth tokens taken from mod.reddit.com to make certain API requests; as of the last release, it now uses auth tokens from a different source, which keeps it working for the forseeable future. This fix had nothing to do with the new modmail interface, though.
What about the beta version?
I had real plans for it, including eventual Shreddit compatibility, but ultimately I burned out on it. The things I wanted to do required a complete overhaul of the entire codebase, and I lost interest in the project pretty quickly after starting it. Functionally, it's identical to the stable version. It will also remain available in its current state.
Couldn't you add more maintainers?
Toolbox requires non-trivial access to data from your browser to function. Browser extensions typically update automatically. Therefore, any new maintainer has the ability to push a malicious update to do scary evil things with your account password and personal information. I can't confidently place that amount of trust in anyone else; there have been no consistent contributors in two years, and I don't know any of you.
Can I fork Toolbox and maintain fixes myself?
Please don't. Find other solutions instead. Toolbox's code is a mess and really isn't worth saving. Many Toolbox features have alternatives available as native features, Devvit apps, or other community-maintained tools. If you know web development, and you absolutely need a bespoke browser extension as part of your team's workflow for some reason, then build your own from scratch that does the things you need and isn't weighed down by a decade of jQuery.
Toolbox's code is released under the Apache license. If you insist on distributing a fork, this license requires you to retain appropriate attribution, and to add notification of any modifications you make to the original code. I also ask you to make it clear your fork is maintained by different people, so I don't get support requests regarding your code.
So. End of an era, huh. I suppose some thanks are in order:
- to /u/creesch, for reining me in over the years whenever my eyes were bigger than my stomach;
- to Toolbox's contributors and beta testers, for giving back, and for inspiring me to do the same;
- and to all the mods that have used Toolbox, for building communities that are themselves worth building for.
Eyes forward, Hakuro. He would not suffer us to mourn with so much undone.
as always, toolbox loves you.
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u/baseballlover723 Mar 04 '26
It's sad to see this day come to pass (as it inevitably would), even sadder to see that you want toolbox to disappear into the night.
Toolbox has been an essential part of any old reddit mod and I expect it will continue to be even in the future. I don't mean to say that you need to maintain it anymore or anything like that, but it does hurt to see that you all would rather it be thrown away entirely than have a chance of the community keeping it on life support, even if it's just to let it gracefully rot over the years.
Thanks for all the effort you all put into toolbox over the years. It's no doubt shaped moderation on reddit for years and will mark the end of a era.
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u/eritbh Mar 04 '26
It does suck, but I just can't think of any good way to manage community maintenance into the future - either I have to be available all the time to do code review and merge fixes people submit, or I give publish access to someone new without any opportunity for me to get to know and trust them first. That, combined with the sheer amount of tech debt Toolbox has accumulated over the years, makes me think building new stuff will be a better use of people's effort. And browser extensions have inherent flaws and difficulties that mean they're always going to be maintenance-intensive when compared to e.g. Devvit apps, or external tools that consume a documented API.
This is ultimately just my opinion about where dev time could be focused for higher value-for-effort though. Like I said in the post, I'm not going to stand in the way of anyone who does want to maintain a fork, as long as everyone understands the privacy implications of new ownership.
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u/MagicBigfoot Mar 04 '26
Thank you for everything, eritbh, creesch and the rest of the toolbox gang.
Your efforts have made our mod lives infinitely better over the years.
No thanks whatsoever to Reddit for implacably ruining what was once a great site.
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u/Swiftstrike4 Mar 04 '26
Thank you for your efforts. My mod team has been using toolbox for years and several have said they would quit being mods if it were to no longer work.
Not sure what we will do, but we will figure it out when we cross that bridge.
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u/Maxion Mar 04 '26
F
End of an era, this anouncement coupled with the new modmail release feels like a dozen or so more nails in the Reddit coffin.
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u/SampleOfNone Mar 04 '26
u/eritbh thank you so much for all the work that you have done, it's very much appreciated!
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u/CX52J Mar 04 '26
Like everyone else here. Thank you for providing this tool. It’s indirectly helped a lot of people who both know about this tool and don’t.
I think it’s also clear that toolbox heavily inspired many of the official Reddit changes so continues somewhat in spirit.
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u/shiruken Mar 04 '26
Thanks for all your efforts in keeping it running this past decade. And thanks to creesch for creating it in the first place.
Reddit wouldn't have grown to be the platform it is today without toolbox.
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u/iAmmar9 Mar 05 '26
What's shreddit
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u/eritbh Mar 05 '26
The current default interface of Reddit, as opposed to "old Reddit" at https://old.reddit.com.
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u/Littux Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Can I fork Toolbox and maintain fixes myself?
Please don't. Find other solutions instead
I was working on a fork of toolbox, and realized that the work I was doing was essentially rewriting the whole codebase. I added some few features I wanted that required only minor modifications, and then abandoned the development
Edit: Here's the fork I'm talking about: https://github.com/Littux-Dustux/reddit-mod-toolbox
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u/pursuitoffappyness Mar 04 '26
Thanks for your hard work. You’re appreciated. Enjoy the rest, it’s deserved.
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u/Merari01 Mar 04 '26
I'm very sorry to see this happening, but I don't blame you.
Thank you for all of the work over the years.
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u/ericgames234 Mar 04 '26
Thank you for everything you, creesch and everyone else on the team has done over the years.
Best of luck in your future endeavors 🫡
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u/pursuitoffappyness Mar 04 '26
Thanks for your hard work. You’re appreciated. Enjoy the rest, it’s deserved.
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u/Boronian1 Mar 04 '26
Thanks to all of you! I can't express how much toolbox helped me over the years since 2018. I'm not sure I would have moderated back in the day without toolbox.
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u/eritbh Mar 04 '26
If you know of any resources that will be useful for mods transitioning away from Toolbox, or if you're looking for something specific, feel free to use the replies to this pinned comment to share resources with each other.