Focus Modes: Academic, YouTube, Reddit, and More
- Name the six Focus modes and what each one prioritises
- Choose the right Focus mode for a given research task
- Run the same query across different Focus modes to get multiple perspectives
Why Source Type Matters
The same question can have very different best answers depending on where you look. "What is the best way to treat a sports injury?" has a different answer from a medical journal than from a Reddit thread — and both are useful in different ways. Focus modes let you choose your source type before searching.
The Focus Modes
All is the default. Perplexity searches the open web without restriction — news sites, blogs, documentation, official pages, everything. Use this for general questions.
Academic restricts search to scholarly sources: peer-reviewed papers, journals, preprints, and academic repositories. Use this when you need evidence-based answers, are researching a scientific topic, or want to cite credible primary literature. Results from Academic mode are far more rigorous than a standard web search, though the language is often more technical.
YouTube searches video content and surfaces answers drawn from transcripts. Use this when you are looking for tutorials, product reviews, talks, or any content where video is the natural format. You can ask things like "How do people set up n8n for the first time?" and get synthesis drawn from real video walkthroughs.
Reddit focuses on community discussions. Use this for personal experiences, product opinions, troubleshooting stories, and questions where real human accounts matter more than curated content. "What do people actually think of [product]?" is a Reddit question.
Writing disables web search entirely. In Writing mode, Perplexity uses its underlying language model with no live retrieval. Use this for creative tasks, drafting, brainstorming, or any task where you want purely generative output without citations pulling the answer in a factual direction.
Social focuses on news and social media. Use it for fast-moving topics and real-time opinion.
How to Switch Focus Modes
The focus mode selector sits below the search bar. You can switch it before typing your question, or change it after a response arrives and rerun the same query. Switching and rerunning the same question across Academic and Reddit is a useful technique: you get the verified evidence from Academic and the real-world experience from Reddit, then synthesise both yourself.
Practical Combinations
- Research a health question → Academic for the evidence, Reddit for patient experiences
- Evaluate a software tool → YouTube for demo walkthroughs, Reddit for real user opinions
- Draft a piece of content → Writing mode so citations do not constrain your prose
- Focus modes restrict where Perplexity searches: Academic = scholarly papers, YouTube = video transcripts, Reddit = community discussions, Writing = no web search
- Switching the same question across Academic and Reddit gives you evidence plus lived experience
- Writing mode turns off retrieval entirely — use it for drafting and creative tasks