How to Filter Reddit: The Complete 2026 Guide

Filtering Reddit in 2026 requires a browser extension — Reddit ships no native keyword blacklist, flair filter, or comment filter. The standard starting point is Ultimate Reddit Filter (free, Chrome + Firefox), which blocks posts by keyword, flair, and subreddit, and also reaches comments. For users who only want politics gone in 30 seconds, Reddit Keyword Filter has presets built-in. If the feed itself is the problem rather than specific topics, News Feed Eradicator removes it entirely.

Last verified: May 25, 2026 · Reading time: 12 min

TL;DR

• Reddit’s native tools cover subreddit mutes and NSFW only — keyword filtering requires an extension.
• Ultimate Reddit Filter is the default pick — keyword + flair + subreddit + comments, free, actively maintained.
• Reddit Keyword Filter is the fastest setup — politics preset built-in, one toggle.
• Reddit Enhancement Suite still works but has been in maintenance mode since 2022 — not recommended for new installs.
• News Feed Eradicator is the nuclear option — removes the homepage feed entirely.
• If you’re opening Reddit compulsively rather than seeing specific content, filtering won’t fix it — you need a distraction blocker.
• If you’re worried about Reddit tracking you across the web, filtering is unrelated — see the privacy layer section below.

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What Reddit’s built-in tools actually cover

Reddit gives you two native controls as of May 2026:

1. Subreddit mute — hide a specific subreddit from r/all and r/popular. Only works site-wide, not per-keyword.
2. NSFW toggle — show or hide adult content. On by default; off in settings.

That’s it. No keyword blacklist. No flair filter. No comment filter. No domain block. No ad removal. Everything else requires a browser extension.

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The three filtering axes

Every Reddit filter works along one or more of these axes:

Axis 1 — Post title keywords

The most common. Your extension scans the title of every post and hides any whose text matches a word on your list. trump catches “Trump signs executive order.” aita catches any Am-I-the-Asshole post.

Strengths: Fast to set up, catches the most content, easy to tune.
Weakness: Doesn’t catch posts where the topic isn’t mentioned in the title — a political image post titled “Look at this” slips through.

Axis 2 — Flair labels

User-applied tags like [Politics], [Satire], [NSFW], or [Spoiler]. Many active subreddits (r/news, r/worldnews, r/movies, r/technology) enforce consistent flair. Filtering by flair catches posts that keyword filters miss because the title is non-specific.

Strengths: Catches posts whose title gives nothing away. Works well in flair-heavy subreddits.
Weakness: Depends entirely on consistent flair usage in the subreddits you browse. r/all is inconsistent.

Axis 3 — Subreddit blocks

Hide every post from a specific subreddit. Blunter than keyword filtering but appropriate for communities that are consistently off-topic for you — r/politics, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/CryptoCurrency.

Strengths: Catches everything from a community regardless of what the post says.
Weakness: Broad — you might miss posts from that subreddit you’d actually want to see.

Only one tool does all three in one extension: Ultimate Reddit Filter.

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Pick a tool

Tool	Keywords	Flair	Subreddit	Comments	Export	Maintained
Ultimate Reddit Filter	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓ Active
Reddit Keyword Filter	✓	—	—	—	—	✓ Slow
Reddit Enhancement Suite	✓ regex	✓	✓	✓	✓	⚠ Maintenance mode
News Feed Eradicator	—	—	—	—	—	✓ Active

Pick Ultimate Reddit Filter if:

You want granular control over what you see. This is the right tool for most people.

Pick Reddit Keyword Filter if:

You want politics gone in 30 seconds and you’re on Chrome. Zero configuration — it ships with a politics preset.

Pick RES if:

You already use RES for its other features (account switching, user tags, custom CSS). The filtering works; the project is just not gaining new capabilities.

Pick News Feed Eradicator if:

Keyword filtering helped but the feed still pulls you in. The nuclear option removes the homepage entirely while leaving subreddit browsing, search, and messaging intact.

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Your specific problem

Most people arrive here for one of six reasons. Each has a direct page:

Problem	Guide
Too many political headlines	How to block political posts on Reddit
Specifically Trump/MAGA news	How to block Trump news on Reddit
AITA and relationship drama	How to hide AITA posts on Reddit
US-centric news (non-US reader)	How to filter American news from Reddit
”What keywords do I actually use?”	Reddit keyword blacklist: starter presets
Compulsive opening, not specific content	What is doomscrolling (and how to stop)

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Set up from scratch in under five minutes

This walkthrough uses Ultimate Reddit Filter. The same steps apply to Reddit Keyword Filter — it just has fewer options.

1. Install. Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons. 60 seconds.
2. Open the extension. Click the icon in your toolbar.
3. Add keywords. One term per line. Start with our politics preset or the AITA preset if that’s your problem.
4. Add subreddits (optional). Switch to the Subreddits tab. Add r/politics, r/PoliticalDiscussion, or whatever community is the primary source of the content you want gone.
5. Add flair filters (optional). Switch to the Flair tab. If you use r/news or r/worldnews, add Politics.
6. Turn on comment filtering. In Settings, enable “Filter comments.” Without this, political subthreads bleed into apolitical posts.
7. Reload Reddit. Done.

The filter list is stored locally in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere. Use the Export button to back it up or move it to another machine.

Common failure: starting with too many keywords (500+) and then losing track of which term caused a false positive. Start with 20–30, trim as you notice misses.

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What filtering doesn’t fix

”I open Reddit too often even though I don’t see bad content”

Filtering removes specific content. It doesn’t change the habit of opening Reddit. If your problem is compulsive checking rather than what you see when you get there, you need a different tool:

• Freedom [partner link] — blocks Reddit across all your devices on a schedule, with a Locked Mode that prevents overrides.
• Cold Turkey [partner link] — the strictest desktop blocker, genuinely impossible to bypass once set.

Both work at a different level than content filtering. Full comparison: Best distraction blockers 2026.

”I want to hide YouTube Shorts while I’m at it” {#privacy-layer}

YouTube Shorts is a separate platform with its own tools. The fastest fix is Unhook — it removes Shorts, recommendations, and the homepage feed from YouTube in one toggle. Full guide: How to hide YouTube Shorts permanently.

”I want Reddit to stop tracking me across other sites”

Content filtering doesn’t touch tracking. A keyword filter tells your browser what to show you — it doesn’t affect what Reddit collects from you.

If tracking is your concern, the right tools are tracker blockers — browser extensions that prevent Reddit’s ad scripts from following you to other websites. uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger handle this at the browser level. For ISP-level visibility into your Reddit usage, a VPN is the relevant tool. Full breakdown: Do you need a VPN for Reddit?

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Maintenance

A well-built keyword list stabilises quickly and then requires almost no upkeep. Two things worth doing:

• Quarterly review. Skim the list and remove terms that aged out — a politician who left office, a coin that died, an event that ended.
• Annual export. Save a copy of your keyword list outside the browser. Extensions occasionally lose local storage after major browser updates.

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Everything in Cluster A

Every page in this cluster links back here. If you’re starting from scratch, read this page first, then go to whichever spoke fits your situation.

• Reddit keyword blacklist: starter presets — copy-paste lists for politics, AITA, crypto, and American news.
• Best Reddit keyword filter extensions 2026 — full ranked comparison of every filter worth installing.
• How to block political posts on Reddit
• How to block Trump news on Reddit
• How to hide AITA posts on Reddit
• How to filter American news from Reddit

Join the FeedCutter waitlist — we’ll send the full preset library (politics, AITA, crypto, sports, drama, UK politics, Indian politics) in one import file on launch.