This is the first tutorial in the Automating & Expanding series. You've triaged your feed — now let's put Engaggit on autopilot so new matches find you instead of the other way around.
Why Schedule Scans?
Reddit moves fast. A thread posted two hours ago might already have 50 replies. The person who sees it early and posts a helpful comment usually wins the conversation.
Manual scanning works when you're getting started, but it means you're only finding leads when you remember to check. Scheduled scanning flips that — Engaggit watches Reddit in the background, and new matches show up in your feed (and optionally as desktop notifications) without you lifting a finger.
Scan Interval Options
Engaggit gives you nine scheduling options, found in the sidebar under "Scan interval":
| Interval | Best For |
|---|---|
| Manual | Testing, setup, or users who only scan on demand |
| Every 5 min | High-urgency, competitive niches where speed matters |
| Every 15 min | Fast-moving niches with frequent new posts |
| Every 30 min | Most users — good balance of freshness and API costs |
| Every 1 hour | The default; works well for most use cases |
| Every 2 hours | Lower-volume keywords, passive monitoring |
| Every 4 hours | Broad topics that don't change quickly |
| Every 12 hours | Twice-daily check-ins, very passive monitoring |
| Every 24 hours | Once-a-day overview, lowest cost |
The default is every 1 hour. For most people, that's the right starting point — frequent enough to catch timely conversations, infrequent enough to keep AI costs reasonable.
Tip: If you're in a fast-moving niche (e.g., startup tools, SaaS), start at 30 minutes. If your keywords are broad and slow-moving (e.g., industry trends), 2–4 hours is fine.
How Background Scanning Works
Engaggit lives in your system tray (bottom-right on Windows, top-right on macOS). Once you've set an interval:
- The app keeps a timer running in the background
- When the timer fires, Engaggit silently runs a full scan — searching Reddit, analysing posts with AI, and updating your feed
- If desktop notifications are enabled, you'll see a pop-up for high-relevance matches
- The next scan is automatically scheduled
You don't need to keep the window open. You don't need to click anything. The system tray icon is your signal that everything's running.
Controlling Scans from the System Tray
Right-click the tray icon for quick access:
| Action | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Show Engaggit | Opens the main window |
| Quit | Closes the app entirely (stops scanning) |
From within the app, the sidebar always shows:
- Your current scan interval — click to change it
- "Scan now" — triggers an immediate manual scan regardless of the schedule
- "Stop" — interrupts a scan that's currently running (useful if you started one by mistake)
Desktop Notifications
When enabled, Engaggit pops up a native desktop notification whenever a scan completes with new high-relevance matches.
Turning Notifications On
- Open Settings (gear icon in the sidebar)
- Go to the Notifications tab
- Toggle "Enable desktop notifications" on (it's on by default)
That's it. You'll start seeing notifications after your next scan.
What Notifications Look Like
When a scan finishes, you'll see something like:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 🔔 Engaggit — 3 new matches found │
│ │
│ ⭐ 82 r/SaaS │
│ "Looking for a CRM that integrates... " │
│ │
│ [View] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘
Clicking View opens Engaggit directly to your feed so you can triage the new posts.
Notification Best Practices
| Setting | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Enable notifications | On | The whole point of background scanning |
| Scan interval | 15–30 min for active niches | Frequent enough to catch timely threads |
| Scan interval | 1–2 hours for passive monitoring | Reduces notification fatigue |
| AI provider speed | Cloud providers are faster | Local models can delay scan completion |
The Scan Status Panel
Whenever a scan is running or has just finished, a status panel appears at the bottom of the main window:
| State | What You See |
|---|---|
| Scanning | Pulsing orange dot + live stats: "Search 5/12 · 47 found · 23 analysed" |
| Completed | Green checkmark + summary: "Scan completed · 47 posts found · 23 analysed" |
| Completed with errors | Orange warning + error count with a "Show errors" button |
| Failed | Red cross + error details |
| Interrupted | Red cross + "interrupted" label |
From the completed state, you can click Show posts to jump straight to the newly found posts in your feed, or Show errors to see what went wrong. Click the × to dismiss the panel.
What's Next
Background scanning is running. Now let's talk about connecting your Reddit account so you can reply directly from Engaggit without switching windows.
Next tutorial → Connecting Your Reddit Account — use the built-in browser to log in, or set up Reddit OAuth credentials for advanced setups.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does scanning use more AI tokens?
Yes — each scan sends matching posts to your AI provider for analysis. More frequent scans + more keywords = more API usage. Cloud providers charge per token, so factor this into your budget. Local Ollama has no per-token cost.
2. What happens if a scan is still running when the next one is scheduled?
Engaggit won't start a new scan while one is already running. The next scan simply waits until the current one finishes, then starts after the next interval.
3. Can I pause scanning without changing the interval?
There's no dedicated pause button, but you can set the interval to Manual in the sidebar to stop automatic scans. You can still trigger scans manually whenever you want. Switch back to a timed interval when you're ready.
4. Will Engaggit scan if my computer is asleep?
No — the timer only runs when your computer is awake. If you put your laptop to sleep for 8 hours with a 30-minute interval, Engaggit will run a scan shortly after you wake it up, then resume the schedule.
5. Do I need to keep the window open for scanning to work?
No. Engaggit runs in the system tray. Closing the window just hides the UI — background scanning continues until you quit the app entirely from the tray menu.
6. What's the difference between "Scan now" and the scheduled scan?
Both run the same scan pipeline. "Scan now" triggers an immediate scan regardless of the timer. Your next scheduled scan fires after the current one completes — so it does push the schedule back by however long the scan takes.
Engaggit is a privacy-first, AI-powered Reddit lead generation app. It runs on your machine, keeps your data to yourself, and helps you never miss a relevant conversation again.