Reddit has native italics, so use them. Wrap a phrase in a single asterisk or a single underscore and it renders as italic: *like this* and _like this_ both work. Two markers give you bold, three give you bold italic.
That is the whole answer for posts and comments on desktop. The complications are the mobile composers, which changed during 2026, and the small set of Reddit fields where Markdown is not available at all.
The Markdown you actually need
| Style | Type this | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Italic | *italic* or _italic_ |
italic |
| Bold | **bold** |
bold |
| Bold italic | ***both*** |
both |
| Strikethrough | ~~struck~~ |
|
| Inline code | `code` |
code |
Reddit’s flavour of Markdown has one behaviour worth knowing. Underscores in the middle of a word are left alone, so snake_case_variable survives intact in a comment. Asterisks are not protected the same way, which means you can emphasise part of a word with un*believable* but not with un_believable_.
That asymmetry exists because Reddit hosts a lot of code and file paths. It is a deliberate choice, not a bug, and it is the reason underscores are the safer marker in prose and asterisks the better one inside a word.
Two editors, one result
On desktop Reddit gives you a rich text editor with a toolbar, and a Markdown editor you can switch to. The toggle sits at the corner of the composer.
The rich text editor is the one most people land in by default. Select a word, click the italic button, done. It produces the same stored Markdown underneath, so a comment written with the toolbar and a comment written by typing asterisks are identical once posted.
The Markdown editor is faster if you already know the syntax and it is the only one that shows you exactly what will be stored. If you write long posts with tables, quotes and nested lists, switch to it and stay there.
Old Reddit, still available at the old domain for accounts that prefer it, is Markdown only. Nothing in this section changes there.
What changed on mobile in 2026
This is where guides written before this year are now wrong.
Reddit’s changelog records that Markdown shortcuts were removed from the iOS and Android post composer on 4 May 2026, with the comment composer following, and that the rich text toolbar picked up the options that were lost in June 2026. Markdown on desktop was not touched.
The practical effect: typing *italic* into the app’s post composer may leave the asterisks on screen instead of rendering. The formatting is not gone, it moved. Select the text and use the toolbar button above the keyboard.
If you write on both a phone and a computer, the safest habit now is to compose on mobile using the toolbar and reserve typed Markdown for desktop. Behaviour in mobile web browsers has tracked desktop more closely than the apps have, so a phone browser is a reasonable fallback if the app composer is missing an option you need.
Where Reddit does not give you formatting
| Field | Native Markdown | Unicode | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post body (self post) | Yes | Yes | Native Markdown |
| Comment | Yes | Yes | Native Markdown |
| Post title | No | Yes | Keep plain |
| Username | No | No | Not possible |
| Subreddit name | No | No | Not possible |
| Flair text | No | Yes | Unicode, sparingly |
| Profile display name | No | Yes | Unicode, sparingly |
Post titles are plain text. That is not an oversight: the title is what search matches, what appears in feeds, and what gets quoted in crossposts. A title is also the single worst place to substitute characters, because r/all and subreddit search both match literally.
Usernames and subreddit names are restricted at the character level to letters, digits, hyphens and underscores, so converted characters are rejected rather than merely discouraged. Any guide promising an italic Reddit username is describing something the signup form will not accept.
Emphasis in practice: posts versus comments
Posts and comments parse the same Markdown, but they are read differently, and the emphasis that helps in one is noise in the other.
A self post is often long. Emphasis there works as structure: a bold lead line, an italic aside, a quoted block for the part you are responding to. Reddit’s > quote and ^superscript also exist, and superscript is the closest thing Reddit has to a native small print style, which is why it carries so many parenthetical asides on the site.
Comments are short and stacked. A single italic clause reads as a change of tone, which is what italics are for. Three bold phrases in a four line comment read as shouting, and on most subreddits that is exactly how it lands.
A worked example. A comment that over formats:
This is definitely the wrong approach and you should never do it.
The same comment with emphasis doing one job:
This is the wrong approach. The part that actually breaks is the ordering, not the syntax.
The second version uses one italic run to point at the thing being discussed. That is the whole purpose of native emphasis, and it is why reaching for converted characters on Reddit usually signals that the emphasis is decorative rather than meaningful.
The narrow case for Unicode on Reddit
Given that Reddit has real formatting, when would you paste converted characters at all?
Two situations. The first is a field with no Markdown, such as user flair or a profile display name, where a short styled phrase is purely decorative. The second is a style Markdown does not offer. Reddit gives you italic, bold and strikethrough. It has no small caps, no cursive script, no monospace outside of code blocks, and no double struck.
If you want a flair that reads 𝓶𝓸𝓭 in script, conversion is the only route. Convert the phrase in the Italic Text Generator, copy it and paste it into the flair field.
The trade never changes. What you paste is a run of separate Unicode characters, not styled letters, which is exactly the distinction Discord users run into for the same reason. Our Discord field guide covers the same Markdown versus Unicode decision on a platform where both live in the same message box.
Why native formatting is the better default
Three reasons, in order of how much they matter on Reddit specifically.
Search. Reddit search matches literal strings. A converted word in a post body is invisible to anyone searching the subreddit for it. Given that Reddit threads rank well in general web search too, the same applies outside the site. Our piece on whether Unicode text hurts your SEO has the mechanics.
Editing. Markdown emphasis is two characters you can delete. Converted text has to be retyped from scratch, and on a phone that is genuinely painful.
Screen readers. Native italic leaves the letters as letters, so a reader announces the words. Converted characters can be spelled out one at a time by their full Unicode names, read as unrecognised symbols, or skipped, depending on the reader and its settings. On a text heavy site where long comments are normal, that difference is large. What screen readers really announce covers it per reader.
Reddit also has a culture point that the technical arguments miss. Converted characters in a comment read as a novelty on most subreddits, and several moderation teams remove them outright. Check the sidebar before you decorate a post.
Try it in a private subreddit
- Create a test subreddit, or use r/test, so nothing lands in front of a real audience.
- Post a comment containing
*one italic phrase*and**one bold phrase**. - Post a second comment written with the rich text toolbar instead, and confirm the result is identical.
- On your phone, open the app and try the same Markdown in a post. Note whether the markers render or stay visible.
- Paste one converted phrase into your profile display name, then use Reddit search to look for that word.
Step four tells you which composer behaviour your app build has. Step five shows you what the search index does with converted text.
Troubleshooting
The asterisks are still visible. Either a space crept inside the markers, or you are in the app composer after the May 2026 change. * italic * will not render. Use the toolbar on mobile.
An underscore in the middle of a word did nothing. Expected. Reddit protects mid word underscores so code and file names survive. Use asterisks there.
Bold and italic together produced a mess. Three asterisks on each side, ***both***, and nothing else between them.
Formatting looks right in the composer and wrong after posting. You were in the rich text editor and pasted Markdown into it. The rich text editor treats typed markers as literal text in some builds. Switch to the Markdown editor before pasting Markdown.
A code block ate my formatting. Inside a code block Markdown is not parsed, which is the point of a code block. Emphasis will not work there.
Emphasis worked in the preview and vanished in the published comment. Check whether the phrase contained a URL. Reddit’s autolinker runs before emphasis in some paths, and a marker that ends up inside a detected link is treated as part of the address rather than as formatting.
A quoted line lost its italics. Quote blocks parse Markdown normally, but a quote pasted from another comment often arrives with the original markers already stripped by the client you copied from. Retype the emphasis rather than trusting the paste.
A converted phrase shows as boxes in the app. The device is missing a font for that Unicode block. It is a rendering gap on the reader’s side, and a good argument for keeping converted text short.
Questions people ask about Reddit italics
How do you italicize on Reddit? One asterisk or one underscore on each side of the phrase. Both produce italic. On the mobile apps since May 2026, use the formatting toolbar instead of typing the markers.
What is the difference between one asterisk and two? One is italic, two is bold, three is bold italic. The markers must be paired and must touch the text.
Why did Markdown stop working in the Reddit app? It was moved rather than removed. The post composer lost the typed shortcuts in May 2026 and the toolbar gained the equivalent buttons in June. Desktop Markdown is unchanged.
Does Reddit search find Unicode styled text? No. The index matches literal characters, so a converted word and its plain spelling are two different strings.
Can you use italics in a Reddit username? No. Usernames accept letters, digits, hyphens and underscores only, so converted characters are rejected at signup. The same restriction applies to subreddit names.
What to take away
Reddit is one of the platforms where the right answer is almost always the native one. Markdown emphasis keeps your words searchable, editable and readable aloud, and it costs two keystrokes. Save converted characters for flair, a display name, or a style Markdown genuinely cannot produce, and keep post titles plain in every case.
Behaviour described here reflects the Reddit web client and mobile apps as of September 2026. The mobile composers have changed twice in the last year, so if a step here does not match your build, check the current app before assuming something is broken.
