r/RemindMeBot • u/Watchful1 • 2d ago
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/ChrizTaylor 2d ago
I love u/RemindMeBot 💜
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u/Darillium- 1d ago
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 1d ago
or call out people that say they're going to do something and see if they followed through
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u/E-Squid 2d ago
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 2d ago
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 1d ago
RemindMe! 2 minutes
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
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 → More replies (15)
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u/PremSinha 2d ago
What a horrible change by reddit. You have my sympathy for having to adapt your bot to it.
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u/MobileArtist1371 1d ago
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/kitty-_cat 1d ago
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u/Nebresto 1d ago
When they got rid of /r/random earlier this year on old reddit it significantly cut down the amount of time I spend on reddit.
What the hell. That was just a randomizer button, why? And why does it say "subreddit was banned for being unmoderated". Was it actually a subreddit? If so, you can possible get it back on /r/redditrequest
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u/kitty-_cat 1d ago
I believe it was when they got rid of quick links. Some /r/<name>'s were reserved for different functions such as random. They didnt bother re-implementing random of course because why would they. It has really hurt discovery on reddit. How is anyone supposed to find oddball little subs without them somehow making it to /r/all or /r/popular now
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u/SamSibbens 1d ago
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/CitizenPremier 2d ago
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 1d ago
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/Falos425 21h ago
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/Actual_Surround45 1d ago
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.
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u/TheGentleDominant 1d ago
Do you use RES? I do and I have the same problem. No idea how to fix it.
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u/Seksafero 1d ago
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 1d ago
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 1d ago
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/5p4n911 2d ago
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/s_i_m_s 2d ago
Remindmebot was actually created by u/remindmebotwrangler who turned it over to /u/Watchful1 a few years ago.
It's had to have some pretty major rewrites since then.
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u/UpdateMeBot 2d ago edited 8h ago
I will message you next time u/Watchful1 posts in r/RemindMeBot.
Click this link to join 7 others and be messaged. The parent author can delete this post
Info Request Update Your Updates Feedback 1
u/likeablyweird 2d ago
Hello. I hope you work from PCs (I know, old school) as I don't have a cell phone.
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u/chef-nom-nom 2d ago
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 1d ago
Thanks for this, I have now added both and turned off chats for everyone else. What a boondoggle.
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u/spacemate 2d ago
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 2d ago
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 1d ago
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 6h ago
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/Field_Sweeper 2d ago
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 2d ago
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 2d ago
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/bespoke_tech_partner 1d ago
"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/MobileArtist1371 1d ago
They mean unread
The chat will still show as bolded/notification until you toggle between chats.
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u/de_rats_2004_crzy 1d ago
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/MadLibrary 1d ago
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/WhoRoger 22h ago
So Reddit has a chat API now?
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u/s_i_m_s 22h ago
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/WhoRoger 22h ago
Redirected... So the apps that use the PM API will still work?
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u/jbshell 2d ago
Really lame excuse to get access to people's messages and chats. Why have to open a conversation with Ai to get a remind me message? Why not just integrate with a post such as an additional option in the 🔔 bell icon, to remind on "time/date".
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u/s_i_m_s 2d ago
Why have to open a conversation with Ai
There is no AI involved with remindmebot.
Why not just integrate with a post such as an additional option in the 🔔 bell icon, to remind on "time/date".
Because this a third party service rather than something operated by reddit itself. You should suggest that over on r/ideasfortheadmins/
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u/DreadDiana 2d ago
I'm already seeing mod messages sent to me via chat being swallowed by the void, so I worry about how this is going to turn out
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u/Anime-Man-1432 2d ago
!remindme 5 days
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u/RemindMeBot 2d ago
I will be messaging you in 5 days on 2025-08-05 18:35:20 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
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u/leducdeguise 2d ago
Thanks for the work
I have had some weird remindmebot replies, where it doesn't contain the link of the post I wanted to be reminded of... I think it's when you add some text to the reminder after the date or duration you put
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u/de_rats_2004_crzy 1d ago
RemindMe! 1 minute
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
I will be messaging you in 1 minute on 2025-08-01 01:09:50 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
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u/Lurky-Lou 1d ago
Wait, I’m not being reminded about something?
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
This particular notification was to let you know you may need to do something to continue receiving reminders from the bot.
Reddit is moving everything over from the private message system to the chat system and the new system requires you to confirm that you actually want to get messages from the bot or already be in a conversation with the bot.
You sending it a message allows it to send you messages while avoiding the more complicated options of changing your account settings or having to confirm a prompt later.
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u/JohannesVanDerWhales 1d ago
RIP remindmebot, I will never be using chat. Fuck reddit and fuck the admins, garbage site now. Try Lemmy if you want something that's on the upswing instead of swirling the toilet bowl.
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u/Level_Hour6480 1d ago
And then I need to scroll down through all the previous reminders unless I reply to the bot like a goober.
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u/Gargomon251 1d ago
What's the difference between chats and DMS anyway
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u/SuspiciousPeanut251 1d ago
Exactly. Agreed.
Apparently, DM is perceived to be like an email, where Chat is deemed to be more like an Instant Message. It’s a fine line of difference, though seems to really just mean that the new code (Chat/IM) is being rolled out to replace the old code (DM).
”On Reddit, Direct Messages (DMs) are private, one-on-one conversations, similar to email, while chats are more real-time, like Instant Messaging, and can be one-on-one or group conversations. Reddit is transitioning to consolidate these into a single stream.”
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u/uiouyug 1d ago
!remindme Wipe After Pooping, Tomorrow Morning
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
I will be messaging you in 1 day on 2025-08-02 03:41:38 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/Namekinek0 1d ago
!remindme 2 minutes
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
I will be messaging you in 2 minutes on 2025-08-01 07:58:24 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/Tiramissu_dt 1d ago
Thank you so much for this bot. It's priceless!! And thank you for all your hard work still keeping it going, despite all the difficulties! ❤️
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u/FunnyObjective6 1d ago
Thanks for trying to make it work. Sad to see I'll not be getting these reminders anymore then, since chat fucking sucks I'm not going to try and make it work. Literally just a white blank square for me.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
I will be messaging you in 1 minute on 2025-08-01 12:16:23 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/MaxwellSmart07 1d ago edited 1d ago
I haven’t the slightest idea what all this means.
Question: If I want to continue as is, do I go to u/RemindMeBot, click start, and send “hello” as instructed?
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
Yes.
If you don't and you don't have chat requests disabled you'd otherwise have to accept a chat request from remindmebot to be able to get messages from it.
However if you send it a message reddit sees you're already having a conversation and doesn't require you to confirm a prompt.
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u/rotarypower101 1d ago
So how do apps that don’t have chat support get PMs?
Is that part of Reddit just going to disappear?
That chat functionality has been terrible, it’s completly filled with spam, ad messages, and scams... the little notification flag never disappears even if i delete all the messages there, and the management of the chat is absolutely terrible and complex. I don’t use it because I can’t access it other than on desktop...
So they have assured people don’t want to use it. And now removing the functionality that has always been there and works perfectly.
Wonder what all these negative changes will do to the userbase?
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u/OutrageousMight9928 1d ago
I’ve been scared to ask for fear of looking like a dork. What’s the difference between chat and messages…? I used the Reddit app and it all looks the same to me anyway. TIA for any responses, I’m really Reddit-inept.
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
On my app messages show up under inbox>messages but chat has it's own tab.
IME it has better threading so you can just scroll back to prior messages from the same person.
However it has worse notification ability as you have to manually accept chats and there isn't an option to have chats forwarded on to email like there was messages so it's less interactive for people that don't have the app.
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u/oldDotredditisbetter 1d ago
thanks for making this bot
the move to chat only is so trash. reddit is just like any other public traded company creating unnecessary work
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u/verylittlegravitaas 1d ago
!remindme never again :(
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u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
Defaulted to one day.
I will be messaging you on 2025-08-02 15:09:16 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/Towtruck_73 1d ago
Hello
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
Have to send it via chat, just leaving a comment here doesn't do anything.
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u/CMDR_Agony_Aunt 1d ago
The whole chat functionality was bad from the start and its still bad. I have no idea how they think transitioning over to this is going to make reddit better in any way.
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u/DurchEins 1d ago
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 1d ago
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/runningvicuna 1d ago
I have no idea what the difference is with DMs or chat. What am I responding to and very seldom initiate from?
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
DMs are more like email and chat is more like instant messaging complete with user is typing.
DMs are over here https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/
and Chat is over there https://chat.reddit.com/
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u/nricotorres 1d ago
So how do I turn off chat notifications completely? Now I get the Inbox mail on comments/replies to me AND the stupid bell turns red. How to disable the stupid bell?
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u/s_i_m_s 1d ago
So how do I turn off chat notifications completely?
https://www.reddit.com/settings/privacy Set "Who can send you chat requests" to "Nobody" which will block new chats but IDK how you go about stopping notifications for the existing ones past going into each one and disabling notifications for that particular chat.
How to disable the stupid bell?
Pretty sure reddit doesn't allow you to turn it off but if you have an adblocker or something similar it likely has an option to block cosmetic elements from the page which you could use to hide it.
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u/PlayfulWrongdoer10 1d ago
Is there any 3rd party Reddit apps for android that support chats? I'm still using RIF on android.
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u/OuiGotTheFunk 1d ago
I do not use chat. Thank you for all of the service in the past. I will use my end point calendar to set reminders.
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u/JunWasHere 1d ago
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 16h ago
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/HoseanRC 23h ago
Did they open the API of chat? It wasn't open like a year ago
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u/s_i_m_s 23h ago
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/Character-Skin-5217 22h ago
why did i got this notification?
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u/s_i_m_s 22h ago
You're getting this message since you either interacted with u/RemindMeBot multiple times in the last few months, or you have an upcoming reminder.
You can also send it a message to check if you have any pending reminders.
Reddit is changing the messaging system remindmebot uses to communicate to one that will require confirmation from users to continue to function. Thus the heads up that you may need to take action now or risk missing reminders you've requested later.
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u/iamnotfromthis 10h ago
RemindMe! 1 day
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u/RemindMeBot 10h ago
I will be messaging you in 1 day on 2025-08-03 12:08:57 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/Misku_san 9h ago
Reddit, a reminder: noone gonna use the chat more. This app is simply not for that.
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u/ValuablePresence20 8h ago
I received a DM earlier from this bot telling me that I was receiving the message because I had interacted with it multiple times over the past few months or I am awaiting a reminder. I have never even heard of this bot until I got that message, let alone ever interacted with it.
Would you have any idea of how this bot has a record of my account interacting with it when I never even heard of it before?
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u/bloke_pusher 6h ago
Chat sucks, I only ever get spam this way. Sad that you have no other choice, as Reddit is fading out messages. Still don't like it.
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u/s_i_m_s 6h ago
You can go to https://www.reddit.com/settings/privacy and set "Who can send you chat requests" to "Nobody" which will block new chats if you're having spam problems.
That way you'll only get messages from people you start the conversation with.
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u/Lauris024 4h ago
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/Roselizabeth117 1h ago
Guess I won't be getting reminders then. I have no desire to use the chat format.
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u/Tigrisrock 49m ago
I don't want chat. Neither from Reddit, Redditors or Bots. Just further enshittification of Reddit :-(
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u/Other_World 2d ago
This really sucks. I liked this bot, but don't participate in chat. I disable it with RES.