Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist’s Melbourne site lost its Personals section in 2018, when Craigslist took personals offline in Australia as well as the US. No single site took its place. People in Melbourne now post personal ads on Reddit’s r/r4rMelbourne, in Locanto’s personals section, on Doublelist, and in text-first apps including AseeksB. In October 2026 we read the 20 newest Melbourne ads on three of them.
After Sydney’s harbour, Melbourne measures distance in trams. Ask how far Brunswick is from St Kilda and you will get a route number before you get a time. The city runs flat in every direction from the Yarra, and the tram lines, more than any map, decide who feels close and who feels like a weekend plan.
People here told me the river still splits the city in two. North of it, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick and Northcote; south of it, South Yarra, Prahran and St Kilda. Nobody calls the other side far, exactly. They call it a different crowd. A personal ad lets you settle that before anyone boards the 96.
From our checks in October 2026, this is how each option works for Melbourne:
In October 2026 we read the 20 newest Melbourne ads on three of these sites and counted the ones that asked readers to move off-site or offered paid services: none on r/r4rMelbourne, none on Doublelist, and 6 on Locanto. All 6 were posted as women, gave contact details and offered paid escort services, and were copies of ads in Locanto’s Sydney section. AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account, so they weren’t counted. How we check.
AseeksB publishes this page and is included in it. For how each site handles the eight traits that defined Craigslist Personals, see our full comparison.
Melbourne still has a Craigslist site, but not for personals: that section went in 2018, and the missed connections listing under Community was empty when we looked. What you miss decides what to try next, whether that is reading ads without signing up, answering one without a match, or staying anonymous. Our Craigslist alternatives comparison sorts the sites by those traits. If you came looking for Doublelist or Locanto in Melbourne, the numbers above are what we found; for more, see sites like Doublelist and sites like Locanto.
Smith Street and Chapel Street are different nights out, and a laneway bar in the city is a neutral choice for exactly that reason. Distance here is less about kilometres than about how many changes it takes, so the useful thing to put in an ad is not just your suburb but your line, and whether you will cross the river for the right person.
A text-first ad lets you name your suburb, your scene and how far you will go, in your own words, before the small talk starts. One honest note before you post: AseeksB was built in the US, and most of its members are still there. In Melbourne you would be one of the early posters. It is free to download and post, and every post shows how far away it was made while you browse.
In 1875, a Melbourne bookseller put his search for a wife on the front page of The Age. On July 5, under Public Notices, Edward William Cole of the Book Arcade on Bourke Street offered a reward to whoever found her:
“A good wife wanted. Twenty pounds reward, positively bona fide.”
The Age, July 5, 1875. Read the noticeHe listed what he hoped for, from good-tempered and intelligent to frugal and a lover of home, and argued that choosing a partner by inquiry made more sense than leaving it to a chance meeting at a ball. Letters, he promised, would be kept in confidence. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, a month later he married the only serious applicant. More in our history of personal ads and The Personals Archive.
A written ad does the sorting before anyone gets on a tram.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Reddit’s board and Locanto. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post.
Write what you are looking for in Melbourne, in your own words, with Supporter controls when you want more.
Nothing replaced it outright. Craigslist removed personals in 2018, in Australia as well as the US. In Melbourne, people now post on Reddit's r/r4rMelbourne, in Locanto's personals section, on Doublelist, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB, which differ in who can read an ad and who can answer it.
Yes. In October 2026, Reddit showed about 4,200 weekly visitors and 183 weekly contributions, the most of the Australian personal-ad boards we checked. Posting or commenting needs a Reddit account more than 5 days old with a small amount of karma.
There is a Melbourne page, but it gets roughly one new ad a month: in October 2026, the 20 newest Melbourne ads went back to January 2025. Anyone can see ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account.
Yes, though most of its members are still in the US. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android. You choose who sees each post by gender and age range, every post shows how far away it was posted, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.