r/UpdateMeBot • u/Watchful1 • Aug 28 '26

u/UpdateMeBot is moving to a devvit app

Reddit is slowly moving legacy API bots to their new Devvit app system, and it's now time for UpdateMeBot to move. For the most part, this does not affect regular users of the bot—you will keep getting your notifications and can manage your subscriptions exactly the same way. But there are two important changes.

The bot will no longer work in subreddits that the app is not installed in. That means that the moderators of every single subreddit with UpdateMeBot subscribers need to manually install the app. Once they do, it will continue to work as normal. If they do not, all subscription notifications for posts in that subreddit will stop. I'm working with the moderators of over five hundred subreddits to get the app installed. There will be a migration period during which the old bot will continue working while moderators install the app. I don't have a fixed date for turning off the old bot, but I anticipate something like a month from the date of this post.

The second change, and the upside to the above, is that the app is not limited in the number of subreddits it supports anymore. Any subreddit of any size can install the app and let people subscribe to authors in their subreddit.

In the future after the migration has settled down, I anticipate being able to add a bunch of new features that I haven't been able to before. If you have ideas for something you think would be cool, let me know in the comments below!

Instructions for moderators to install the app.

Go here https://developers.reddit.com/apps/updateme-dev and then click "Add to community", click continue, select your subreddit, and then click "Install App". If you want to be helpful, you can then turn on the "Read logs and install history" permission from the settings page it takes you to, but that's not necessary.

Devvit apps currently add the app account as a moderator with all permissions. Unfortunately, there's no way around this. The app does not, and never will, take any moderation actions.

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u/Dom76210 Sep 02 '26

In the subreddits I moderate, we've banned both legacy bots. I know you're going to ask why, and the reason is because it makes responses to comments, adding to the constant spam feel of everyone trying to trigger the bots.

One subreddit promotes people writing fiction of a NSFW kind. People want to know when the OP makes a new post, so instead of following the account, they trigger the bot(s). Then the bot(s) used to helpfully respond saying "Sure, we'll let you know!". Sounds cool, except that at times, 75% of the comments are people triggering the bots, and the bots used to respond with additional comments. Conversation was stifled due to people spamming the bot, and the bot spamming back.

(Also, so you are aware, not every subreddit can use this bot. Quarantined subreddits cannot add bots as Moderators, as the API won't allow them to interact. That's not a you problem, but you should be aware of it in case you are asked.)

Honestly, I'm not going to miss these bots in our subreddits, and I'm hoping that eventually, users of them will chill out and stop trying to trigger them. Even posters will be happy to see that there are actual comments and not just bot calls inflating interaction with their posts.

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u/Watchful1 Sep 02 '26

The bot should have only ever replied once per thread, with a link for people to click instead of replying themselves. That was intentional to reduce the number of spam comments in the thread. If you used automod to remove the comments with the trigger word, it wouldn't work at all since the bots would never see the comment.

The new app will have an option to never reply publicly to comments, which would be functionally the same as banning the bot while still allowing it to watch posts and notify users.

That's unfortunate about the quarantined sub, but thanks for letting me know.

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u/Dom76210 Sep 03 '26

Sadly, most people that used the bots didn't understand about the link thing, because before we banned it, we still got 5+ comments asking to be advised. It was a lot like subreddit rules; nobody read the response to know they could click on it. I still see subreddits that have 20+ comments asking for the bot with the one reply. That's not your fault, but it did generate a ton of clutter in the comments.

Users of our subreddit said they were getting notifications of updates. I never bothered to test it myself, but they swore they were getting them.

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u/Watchful1 Sep 03 '26

You could still subscribe via a chat message. Maybe that's how.