How to Find Someone on Reddit, With or Without a Username

Find someone on Reddit by username, display name or a post they wrote, and see why email and phone lookups fail. Free methods checked against Reddit's help.

Quick answer: Reddit is built for pseudonyms. There is no way to look someone up by email or phone number, and searching a real name rarely works because most people do not use one. What you can do depends on what you already know:

You know their username: go straight to reddit.com/user/username.
You know part of it, or their display name: use Reddit's search and switch the results to people.
You know nothing about their Reddit: find it through their other accounts, or through something they wrote.

One fact makes all of this easier than on most platforms: a Reddit username can't be changed once it is finalized. It stays the same for the life of the account, so a username you found years ago still points to the same person today.

Username vs display name: check this first

Reddit accounts have two names, and mixing them up is the most common reason a search fails.

Username: the permanent handle, shown as u/username. It is 3 to 20 characters long and uses only letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores. It is unique, so only one account can ever have it.
Display name: an optional name set in profile settings, where it can also be changed. It does not have to be unique, so it is a hint, not an identifier.

Reddit's help pages are clear on the username: once it is finalized, it "can't be changed in any way, including its capitalization." If someone wants a new name, they have to make a new account. That is why people who want a fresh start often have several accounts, and why an old username is still a reliable lead.

Method 1: Go straight to their profile

If you know the exact username, skip search entirely.

Type reddit.com/user/ followed by the username into your browser, without the u/ prefix.
If the account exists, you land on its profile, with tabs for posts and comments.
If Reddit says the account was deleted or does not exist, check the spelling first, then see the section on why you can't find someone, further down.

Profiles show the account's karma, its cake day (the date it was created) and any public posts and comments. Many profiles also carry social links, which Reddit lets users add to their profile, and those often lead straight to the person's other accounts.

Method 2: Search by part of the username or the display name

If you only remember part of a name, Reddit's own search is the next step.

Type the name into the search bar at the top of Reddit.
Switch the results to people (profiles), rather than posts or communities.
Open the likely matches and compare the avatar, the bio, the communities they post in and the age of the account.

Display names are not unique, so expect several accounts with the same one. Treat a match as a lead until something else confirms it: the same avatar, a community you know they belong to, or a detail in their posts that only they would mention.

Method 3: Search their usernames from other platforms

People reuse handles. The name someone uses on Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Steam or an old gaming account is very often their Reddit username too, or close to it.

Run every handle you know through WhatsMyName App. It checks hundreds of sites at once, for free and without an account, and shows where each handle is in use.
For Reddit itself, also type reddit.com/user/ followed by each handle into your browser. Reddit often blocks automated lookups, so a direct visit is the reliable test.
If nothing turns up, try close variations: an underscore instead of a hyphen, a number at the end, or an older handle they used years ago.

Our Reddit username guide explains how Reddit usernames and profiles work in more detail.

This works because Reddit usernames are permanent. Someone who changed their handle everywhere else still has their original Reddit name, so an old handle from 2016 can be the one that finds them.

Method 4: Search something they wrote

If you know a phrase they posted, a story they told or a topic they always talk about, search for the words rather than the person.

Use Google: search site:reddit.com followed by the phrase in quotes, for example site:reddit.com "my first marathon in Leeds". Google often finds Reddit posts and comments faster than Reddit's own search does. Click a result and the author's username is right above the post.

Use Reddit's search: search the phrase on Reddit and filter to comments or posts. If you think you know the community, open that subreddit first and search inside it, which cuts out most of the noise. Reddit's search also supports operators such as author:username and subreddit:name, which help when you are checking whether a suspected account wrote something, though its results can be patchy, so try Google as well.

Think about where they would post. People post in communities tied to their city, their job, their hobbies, the games they play and the shows they watch. Browsing a small local or niche subreddit is slow, but it is often how people find someone they know.

Method 5: Find their Reddit through their other accounts

Many people link their Reddit somewhere else. Check these places:

Bios and link pages: an Instagram or X bio, a Linktree, or a personal website.
Discord profiles: Discord lets users show connected accounts, and Reddit is one of them. See how to find someone on Discord.
Developer and creator profiles: GitHub profiles, YouTube channel descriptions and Twitch panels sometimes mention a Reddit account.
Their own posts elsewhere: people write "I posted this on Reddit" or share a Reddit link more often than you would think.

It works the other way too. Once you find a Reddit profile, its social links and the usernames it mentions often lead to the person's other accounts.

Can you find someone on Reddit by email or phone number?

No. Reddit has no public lookup by email or phone number, and it does not show either on profiles.

The email route people talk about only works for the inbox owner. Reddit's username recovery works like this: you enter an email address on the password reset page, Reddit sends a reset email to that address, and the link inside it opens a list of some of the usernames tied to it. Only someone who can open that email ever sees the list, not whoever typed the address in. If you do not have access to that inbox, you learn nothing, and getting into someone else's email without permission is against the law in many countries.

People search sites that claim to link an email or phone number to a Reddit account are paid services, and we could not verify how they get their data or how often they are right. Treat their results with caution.

Why you can't find someone on Reddit

If the methods above come up empty, one of these is usually the reason:

They deleted their account. The profile is removed, and anyone visiting the old link gets a message that the account has been deleted. Their posts and comments can stay on Reddit, but they no longer show who wrote them.
They are using a different account. Usernames cannot be changed, so a person who wanted a new name had to make a new account. The one you know may be abandoned.
They hid their activity from their profile. Since June 2025, Reddit's Curate your profile setting lets users hide posts and comments from their profile, for chosen communities or all of them. An empty profile does not mean an empty account.
The account was suspended. Suspended accounts show a suspension notice instead of their history.
The name is spelled differently. A missing underscore or a swapped number is enough. Remember that the display name you saw may not be the username at all.

A deleted username is gone for good. Reddit's help pages say a deleted username "will not become available again and will be unusable," and that usernames "can't be reused" by the same person or anyone else. So an account you find under a username is always the account that first registered it. Nobody can pick up a name after its owner deletes it, though an account itself can still be sold or hacked.

What a hidden profile does and does not hide

Profile curation changes what appears on someone's profile page. It does not delete anything. Reddit says the hidden posts and comments "are still available in the original community where they were made, as well as in search results both on and off the platform."

In practice:

Their posts still appear in the communities where they posted them, with their username on each one.
Those posts can still turn up in Reddit search and in Google, so Method 4 still works.
Moderators of a community get temporary full access to a user's profile for 28 days after that user posts, comments or sends mod mail there.

We do not recommend browser extensions or sites that promise to "unhide" Reddit profiles. Hiding a profile is a deliberate choice, and tools built to work around it go against what the person asked for. Everything in this guide uses only what people have chosen to make public.

Finding your own old Reddit account

If the person you are trying to find is you, the process is simpler:

In the Reddit app: if you are still logged in, tap your avatar to see your username. If several accounts are logged in, the username dropdown on your profile page lists them all.
By email: search your inbox for messages from Reddit from when you signed up, or use the password reset page with your email address. The reset email links to a list of usernames tied to that address. This only works if you added an email to the account.
By your old handles: type reddit.com/user/ plus each name you used years ago, and run the same names through WhatsMyName App to find the forgotten accounts on other sites that go with them.

If you are tidying up an old account, see our guide to searching yourself online.

Use this responsibly

Reddit is one of the few big platforms where most people do not use their real name, and many of them rely on that. Finding a public profile and reading public posts is generally legal, but what you do next matters.

Do not post someone's personal information or share who you think they are. Reddit's rules ban it, and it can cause real harm.
If someone is harassing or threatening you, report them through Reddit rather than trying to identify them yourself.
If someone is pretending to be you, see what to do when someone is using your username.

For more on how this tool handles data, see whether WhatsMyName App is safe to use.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find someone on Reddit without their username?

Search their usernames from other platforms with a cross-platform tool, search a phrase they wrote with site:reddit.com on Google, or look for a Reddit link in their bios and connected accounts. Reddit has no search by email or phone number, and a real name only helps if they set it as their display name.

Can I find someone on Reddit by phone number?

No. Reddit has no phone number search and does not show phone numbers on profiles.

Can you find someone's Reddit from their email?

Not unless you control that inbox. Reddit's username recovery sends a reset email to the address, and only the link inside it shows the linked usernames, so only the owner of the email sees them.

Can Reddit profiles be traced?

A Reddit profile shows only what the user posts and chooses to show. People are usually identified by what they reveal: a handle they reuse elsewhere, a linked account, or personal details in their posts. Reddit does not publish emails, phone numbers or IP addresses.

Can someone take a deleted Reddit username?

No. Reddit never releases a deleted username. It cannot be registered again by the original owner or anyone else.

Does hiding posts on Reddit make them private?

No. Curate your profile only hides posts and comments from the profile page. They stay in the communities where they were posted and can still appear in search results on and off Reddit.

Can I change my Reddit username?

No. Once a Reddit username is finalized it cannot be changed, not even its capitalization. The only option is to make a new account.

Related guides

WhatsMyName App is built on the open-source, community-maintained WhatsMyName dataset.

How to Find Someone on Reddit (With or Without a Username)