Frequently asked questions
Subdex does not provide identity deanonymization, private information lookup, or access to private Reddit content.
- Does Subdex require a Reddit account?
- No. It never signs in to Reddit and never asks you to.
- Do I need an API key?
- No. The archive APIs it uses are public and unauthenticated.
- Is Subdex affiliated with Reddit?
- No. It is an independent tool. Reddit trademarks belong to their owners.
- Where does the data come from?
- From independent third-party archives of public Reddit content, currently Arctic Shift and PullPush. Subdex stores no records of its own.
- Does it search deleted Reddit posts?
- It searches what the archives captured. If something was archived before it was deleted, the archived copy may appear, marked as deleted or removed.
- Can it recover every deleted post?
- No, and any tool claiming otherwise is overstating what archives hold. Content deleted before capture was never recorded.
- Why are results missing?
- Archive coverage is uneven, filters may be too narrow, a provider may have been unavailable, or the activity may fall outside what was collected. Missing results are not evidence that nothing was posted.
- Can I search usernames?
- Yes, for public archived posts and comments attributed to that username. That is the account's public content, nothing more.
- Does Subdex identify the real person behind an account?
- No. There is no identity resolution, no cross-site matching and no writing-style analysis. This is a deliberate boundary, not a missing feature.
- Can Subdex find someone's location?
- No. It does not infer location or timezone, including from posting times, which do not reliably indicate either.
- Can it access private messages?
- No. Private messages are not public and are not in any archive it queries.
- Can it access private subreddits?
- No.
- Can it find other social media accounts?
- No. Its scope is Reddit archive content.
- Does Subdex store my searches?
- Not by default. Recent searches are off unless you turn them on, and even then they stay in your browser. Your queries are sent to the archive provider, which is a separate service with its own logs.
- Can I export results?
- Yes. CSV, JSON and a Markdown research summary, all generated in your browser.
- Why do Arctic Shift and PullPush differ?
- They collected at different times with different methods. Where they disagree, both values are kept rather than one being declared correct.
- What happens when an archive API is offline?
- The interface says so and, where a fallback is available, tries it. Partial results are labelled as partial rather than presented as complete.
- Is Subdex free?
- Yes. There are no accounts, no billing and no paid tier.
- Can I use it for journalism?
- Yes, with the usual verification. Archive records are a starting point, not a citable fact.
- Can I use it for academic research?
- Yes. Exports include the query, sources and caveats so results can be reproduced and reviewed.
- Does it use AI?
- No. Every analysis is deterministic arithmetic over the loaded records. Nothing is sent to a language model.
- Does it have a database?
- Not on a server. Saved research lives in your browser's IndexedDB.
- Where are saved research projects stored?
- In this browser only. Exporting is the only way to move them elsewhere, and clearing your browser data deletes them.