Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist took its Personals section offline in 2018, and no single site replaced it. In Michigan, personal ads now live mostly on Reddit boards for the whole state, Ann Arbor, and Lansing, and also on classified sites such as Doublelist and in text-first apps including AseeksB. Craigslist still runs missed connections, but Michigan’s are quiet. We checked the boards and the missed connections on October 15, 2026.
Michigan posts statewide. Its busiest Reddit personals board covers the whole state, with about 51,000 weekly visitors, and its moderators check that you’re from Michigan. Craigslist’s missed connections there are nearly empty: on October 15, 2026, Detroit’s board had 5 posts going back three months, Lansing’s 1, and Grand Rapids’ none, even as searches for “doublelist grand rapids” grew 125% on last year.
Detroit is still the biggest search. “doublelist detroit” gets about 14,800 Google searches a month, up 22% on last year, and reached 18,100 in August and September (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). So this page goes city by city.
Here is how each option works, from our checks in October 2026:
We checked the Reddit boards and Craigslist’s missed connections on October 15, 2026. We no longer count escort ads on the classified sites: the pattern has been consistent in the cities we’ve checked, and our Boston and New England page has the most recent counts. AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account. 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.
Coming from Reddit or a classified site? On AseeksB you still write an ad in your own words, but you choose who can see it, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; and no photo or real name is needed. Posting, browsing, and replying are free. How AseeksB works.
“doublelist detroit” gets about 14,800 searches a month, up 22% on last year. Elsewhere in Michigan, Grand Rapids gets about 3,600, up 125%, with 5,400 in September; “doublelist michigan” 1,900, up 213%; Lansing 1,000; Flint 880; Kalamazoo 720; and Ann Arbor 480 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Anyone can see Doublelist’s ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. Posting is free for up to 3 posts, and seeing members’ photos takes a paid plan; its help center lists two, Hookup and Hardcore, at $45 and $90 a year. Its pages open with a paid pop-up and carry sponsored links to outside sites; on October 11, 2026, one of them, “Hookup Finder,” led to a page that Chrome blocked as dangerous.
We no longer count its ads place by place, because the pattern has been consistent: in most of the cities we’ve checked, escort ads were among its 20 newest ads. Our Boston and New England page has the most recent counts, from October 12, 2026.
If you’re coming from Doublelist, AseeksB works differently: you choose who can see your post, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; admins actively monitor posts; and posting, browsing, and replying are free. For more options, see sites like Doublelist.
Michigan’s busiest boards cover the whole state, and Ann Arbor and Lansing have their own. The numbers below are Reddit’s own, from October 15, 2026.
Michigan’s busiest personals board, created in January 2023, has about 202,900 members, 51,000 weekly visitors, and 5,900 weekly contributions. Accounts must be 30 days old to post, moderators check that you’re from Michigan, and you can’t put a Snapchat, Kik, or Telegram name in a post; people swap those by message instead. A second statewide board, created in 2017, covers “Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Traverse City, even the sexy UP,” with about 9,700 weekly visitors and 1,300 weekly contributions. Titles need a tag, ideally with your age first and your town last; accounts must be a week old; it bans transactions, OnlyFans and Telegram links, and online-only requests, because it is for meeting in Michigan; and you can post once every 24 hours. A third, created in 2024, is smaller, with about 1,800 weekly visitors, but strict: it blocks words like “snapchat,” “kik,” “telegram,” and “DM” to cut spam, allows one post a day, and wants titles like “29 [M4R] City, Looking to find…”
r/AnnArborR4R, created in 2023, has about 10,900 members, 2,900 weekly visitors, and 269 weekly contributions. Titles must give at least your age, your gender, and who you’re looking for, like “40 m4f,” and transactional posts aren’t allowed. Lansing’s board, created in 2017, covers MSU, East Lansing, Okemos, and the towns around them, with about 22,600 members, 3,300 weekly visitors, and 456 weekly contributions, and it follows the same rules as the second statewide board above.
We found no r4r board just for Detroit or Grand Rapids, so people there post on the statewide boards, with their town in the title. Each has a swingers’ board: r/MetroDetroitSwingers, with about 7,400 members and 1,400 weekly visitors, and r/GrandRapidsSwingers, with about 12,500 members and 2,300 weekly visitors; for how swinger boards and sites work, see our guide to swinger apps. Grand Rapids’ other busy boards are for posting photos, not personals.
Craigslist still runs missed connections in Michigan, under Community, but they are quiet. On October 15, 2026, Detroit’s board had 5 posts, 1 of them really an ad, the oldest from three months back; Ann Arbor’s had 3, 1 of them an ad; Lansing’s had 1; and Grand Rapids’ had none. “detroit missed connections” gets about 90 searches a month (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). That is a snapshot from one day, not a measure of the whole site.
AseeksB has a missed connections category too: say where and when, and only the audience you choose can see the post. For how to write one that the right person will recognize, see our guide to missed connections.
Beyond the apps. “detroit speed dating” gets about 320 searches a month, against about 110 for “detroit personals.” Eventbrite lists speed dating across metro Detroit, from a 50-and-over dinner night in Livonia to Christian speed dating in Taylor and nights at a Northville brewery. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
Michigan’s personal ads are much older than Craigslist, and sometimes they made the news. On March 2, 1911, The Detroit Times put this notice on its front page:
“Young farmer, 27 years old, wishes to correspond with young lady. Inquire at No. 110 Magnolia-st.—W. H. T.”
The Detroit Times, March 2, 1911. Read the adIt ran inside a story headlined “WANT A HUSBAND? HERE’S A CHANCE,” which named him as William Henry Tappen, “Young and Shy, Anxious To Take ‘Stunning Bride’ Back To Farm,” and said he had visited the Times office himself.
Eight decades later, personals filled pages of Metro Times, the Detroit alt-weekly founded in 1980. In 1990, a 15-word ad cost $5 and a box for replies $10, with the week’s answers mailed out each Wednesday in a manila envelope; a “Romance Hotline” voicemail box cost $9.95, and callers paid 95 cents a minute. The personals peaked in the 1990s and faded with Craigslist and then the apps, the paper recalled in 2020; one read, “Homely, smelly SWM, 50, seeks homely, smelly WF for companionship.” More in our history of personal ads and The Personals Archive.
Michigan is wide: Grand Rapids is about 160 miles from Detroit by road, and the statewide boards ask for your town in the title. Every AseeksB post shows how far away it was posted, and anyone can search by distance.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Craigslist’s missed connections and most of the classified sites above. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post.
Every post makes AseeksB busier for the next person in Michigan. Post what you’re looking for, and if there’s a feature you’d want, tell us through the app, from the profile tab; we’d love to hear it.
Text-first personal ads for Detroit and the rest of Michigan, in your own words, with distance and other controls in Supporter.
Craigslist took its Personals section offline in the US on March 22, 2018, after Congress passed FOSTA, including in Michigan. People there now post on Reddit boards for the whole state, Ann Arbor, and Lansing, on classified-style sites such as Doublelist, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB. The options differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
We found no board just for Detroit. Michigan’s busiest personals boards cover the whole state, the busiest with about 51,000 weekly visitors in October 2026, and Ann Arbor and Lansing have their own; r/MetroDetroitSwingers is for swingers.
No. Craigslist took Personals offline across the US on March 22, 2018, Detroit included. It still runs missed connections, under Community, but on October 15, 2026, Detroit’s board had 5 posts going back three months, and Grand Rapids’ had none.
Yes. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android. Every post shows how far away it was posted, anyone can search by distance, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance on their own posts. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.