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Knowledge Base entry

How do you set the community type (public, restricted, private)?

A practical answer page built from the knowledge base source.

FAQ Imported article

Reddit offers three community visibility types, each suited to different purposes, and you can change this setting at any time from the community's moderation tools. Understanding the practical implications of each helps you pick the right starting configuration and adjust as the community evolves. A public subreddit is visible to all Reddit users and accessible without any approval requirement. Anyone can see the posts, leave comments, and submit new content without moderator intervention. Public is the default and the most appropriate type for communities intended to grow organically through open participation. Virtually all topic-based communities that aim for broad membership use this type, since discoverability depends on being open to search indexing and recommendation algorithms. A restricted subreddit is visible to everyone — users can see and read all content, and it appears in search results — but only approved members can post or comment. Moderators maintain an approved submitter list and grant posting permission selectively. This setup is well suited to communities where quality control over contributions is critical, such as focused professional groups, official product support channels, or academic communities where only verified experts should author content. Readers can follow along and reference the discussions without the noise of unrestricted posting. A private subreddit is invisible to non-members. Neither the content nor the existence of the subreddit appears in search results or recommendations. Only users who have been explicitly invited by a moderator can join and view the community. Private subreddits work well for internal teams, closed groups, beta-testing communities, or any situation where the audience is intentional and controlled. They are also commonly used as staging areas while a community is being configured before a public launch. To change the community type, navigate to Mod Tools, then to Community Settings, and look for the "Community Type" dropdown. The change takes effect immediately. Starting as private while you set up rules, flairs, and initial content is a common strategy that avoids the awkwardness of visitors arriving at an empty or unfinished community. Once the groundwork is laid, switching to public or restricted opens the doors in a more deliberate way.

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