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Text Fallback

Text fallback lets you specify alternative text content for your interactive post, enabling:

  • Old Reddit and third-party app support - These platforms cannot render interactive posts
  • Google (SEO) and Reddit Answers indexing - Critical for discoverability and growth
  • AutoModerator rule compatibility - Allows mod rules to process your post content
  • Reddit safety checks and filters - Enables content moderation systems to work properly
  • Custom post thumbnail - Link to an image to generate a thumbnail

Text fallback uses Markdown formatting and allows for up to 40,000 characters.

Reddit API​

The text fallback is only available when using the Reddit API to create a post.

devvit.json
{
  "permissions": {
    "reddit": true
  }
}

Use a text string​

import { reddit } from '@devvit/web/server';

const post = await reddit.submitCustomPost({
  title: 'Text String',
  subredditName: subreddit.name,
  textFallback: { text: 'You can read this text string on oldreddit because you used textFallback' },
  entry: 'default',
});

Result

text string fallback

Use a text string with markdown​

import { reddit } from '@devvit/web/server';

const post = await reddit.submitCustomPost({
  title: 'Text string with markdown',
  subredditName: subreddit.name,
  textFallback: {
    text: 'You can read this _text string with markdown_ on oldreddit because you used **textFallback**',
  },
  entry: 'default',
});

Result

text string fallback

Use rich text​

import { reddit } from '@devvit/web/server';

const textFallbackRichtext = new RichTextBuilder()
  .heading({ level: 1 }, (h) => {
    h.rawText('Yay for text fallbacks!');
  })
  .codeBlock({}, (cb) => cb.rawText('You can read this rich text on old.reddit because you used textFallback'));

const post = await reddit.submitCustomPost({
  title: 'Rich Text',
  subredditName: subreddit.name,
  textFallback: { richtext: textFallbackRichtext },
  entry: 'default',
});

Result

text string fallback

Update a post’s text fallback​

The post author can edit and update text fallback content after it’s been created. To do this, call post.setTextFallback with the desired fallback content.

import { reddit } from '@devvit/web/server';

// from a menu action, form, scheduler, trigger, custom post click event, etc
const newTextFallback = { text: 'This is an updated text fallback' };
const post = await reddit.getPostById(context.postId);
await post.setTextFallback(newTextFallback);