How to save a Reddit thread as Markdown

What Reddit offers

There is no "export thread" in Reddit, old or new. The options people fall back on:

• Copy and paste. You get the text, minus the nesting. Who replied to whom is gone, and so is the formatting of code blocks and quotes.
• The .json address. Add .json to the end of a thread's address and Reddit returns the raw data of the post and its comments. It is complete and machine-readable. It is also not something you can read or drop into a note without writing a converter.
• Saving the post. Reddit's own Save button keeps a pointer on Reddit. If the post is deleted, so is your copy.

Save a Reddit thread to Markdown with Markforge

Markforge is a free Chrome extension that converts the page you are on to Markdown. It includes a parser written for Reddit threads.

1. Install Markforge from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open the thread. The address contains /r/ and /comments/.
3. Expand the comment branches you care about.
4. Click the Markforge icon, or press Alt+M.
5. Turn on Include comments at the top of the popup if you want the discussion and not only the post.
6. Click Copy or Download .md.

The toggle is remembered, so the next thread opens the way you left it. Conversion runs in your browser, with no account and no server involved.

What the Markdown file looks like

---
title: "What finally made your vault stick?"
author: "u/original_poster"
date: 2026-09-12
source: "Reddit"
url: "https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/..."
description: "I have restarted my vault four times. What changed for you?"
tags: ["ObsidianMD"]
---

# What finally made your vault stick?

**r/ObsidianMD** | Posted by **u/original_poster** | *September 12, 2026*

* * *

I have restarted my vault four times. What changed for you?

* * *

## Comments

**first_commenter**

Daily notes, and nothing else for the first month.

> **second_commenter**
>
> Same here. Folders came much later.

* * *

A few things to notice:

• The subreddit becomes a tag in the frontmatter, which is handy for filtering in Obsidian or any tool that reads YAML.
• Each comment starts with its author in bold. A reply is a Markdown quote, and a reply to a reply is a quote inside a quote, so the depth of the discussion survives.
• Top-level comments are separated by a horizontal rule.
• Image posts keep their images. Video posts are exported as a thumbnail and a link to the video.

Using a thread as context for an LLM

Reddit threads are a common thing to hand to a model: "summarize the consensus", "list the tools people recommend". The nested quote format helps here, because the model can tell an answer from a rebuttal.

Check the token count in the popup before pasting. A busy thread with comments is long, and the popup lets you trim it in the content field first. The Strip links toggle removes URLs and keeps their text, which shortens threads full of references.

Limits worth knowing

• Loaded comments only. Reddit loads part of a big thread and hides the rest behind "more replies" links. Markforge exports what is in the page.
• No scores. Vote counts are not exported in version 1.0.0.
• No comment dates on the current design. Old Reddit exposes them, and they are exported there.
• Tables are flattened. A table in a post or comment comes out as lines of text.
• Thread pages only. The parser matches a post's own page, not a subreddit listing or a user profile.
• Chrome only.

Related guides

X threads have the same problem and their own parser: see how to save an X thread as Markdown. For a wider comparison of clippers, including the ones that handle articles better than Markforge does, read the best Markdown web clippers for Chrome.