Discord is one of those apps that has helped kill off good ol' internet forums. If you look hard enough, you can find a Discord server for most any niche hobby, online course, or fandom of choice. I'd been aware of the app for a while, but I didn't join Discord myself until I found a server for my favorite iPhone game (Imbroglio, by Michael Brough), which is about as niche as it gets. Thanks to the tips I got from the kind people on this server, I was able to finish the incredibly difficult roguelike with all 16 characters.
Since then, I've used Discord regularly to follow more than a few of my hobbies and interests, including, but not limited to, motorsports, gaming, fountain pens, and studying Japanese. In this time, I've discovered a few tips and tricks to make the experience better, and I've collected the best of them below.
Use this setting to stop Discord from sharing your data for ads
Credit: Pranay Parab
Like every free service out there, Discord shows ads to make money. By default, it uses your Discord activity to personalize some of these ads, and you can disable that to protect your privacy. Click the gear icon in the Discord app to open settings. Go to Data & Privacy > How Discord Uses Your Data, and disable "Use my Discord activity to personalize Sponsored Content." This will also automatically disable the option right below it, which is called "Use third-party data to personalize Sponsored Content." Both these options stop Discord from using your data for ads. While you're at it, you should also disable Use data to improve Discord and Use data to personalize my Discord experience. Both options are located on the same settings page.
Block Discord from allowing people to clip your voice
Discord has a feature called Clips, which allows people to record a clip of a voice channel. You can think of this as the equivalent of being on a group call and recording a funny moment from the call so that it can be shared on social media. Streamers use this to promote their channel via short clips, which is much easier to promote on social media than an hours-long stream.
If you're a part of a voice channel on Discord, you can ask the app to mute your voice from these Clips, so even if someone else records one clip, it won't contain your voice. To do this, go to Discord settings > Data & Privacy > How Discord Uses Your Data, and disable Allow my voice to be recorded in Clips.
Prevent Discord from announcing profile updates
When you make changes to your Discord profile, the app sends a push notification to your friends about it. This is fine when you and your friends don't mind it, but personally, I dislike both sending and receiving such alerts. If you feel the same way, you can disable this feature by going to Discord settings > Data & Privacy > Profile Privacy, and disabling Share when I update my profile.
Get Discord Nitro for free
Discord Nitro is an optional paid subscription service that adds a few features to the app. Nitro Basic costs $3/month, and it lets you upload up to 50 MB per file. The premium tier is called Nitro, and it costs $10/month. For this price, you get 500MB uploads per file, HD video streaming, and a few other features. Most people don't need any of that, but if you're a Discord power user, you'll probably find something of value in the subscription. Before you start paying for it, though, there are a few ways to get Discord Nitro for free, at least for a couple months:
Check for Discord promos. Sometimes, Discord offers a Nitro trial for two weeks or a month. Keep an eye out the promo offers in Discord's app or social media handles.
Try promotions from other companies. Lots of companies, such as Sony, Microsoft, and Epic Games Store, periodically offer Discord Nitro for free. You can check this Discord Support page to see which offers are active. You may need to make an eligible purchase at a third-party site to get Nitro for free.
Participate in Nitro giveaways. Some Discord servers may host a Nitro giveaway, which is an easy way to get it for free. Even if servers don't have giveaways, generous members often gift Nitro subscriptions in popular servers. If you're a helpful member of the right server, you could get Nitro for free for short durations.
Credit: Pranay Parab
Discord has a frankly overwhelming interface. It feels crowded, and it's difficult to use if you don't memorize a bunch of keyboard shortcuts. You can navigate it with your mouse, but everything seems to take one click too many, and useful features are hard to find quickly or are buried beneath layers of menus.
Fortunately, Discord makes it easy to find your favorite keyboard shortcuts—it ships with a cheat sheet. When you're running Discord on Windows, press Ctrl-/ (forward slash) to reveal the cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts. On a Mac, this shortcut is Command-/. The shortcuts are neatly categorized by type and presented in a format designed to be easy to memorize. Try it, and you can level up your Discord game instantly. (I frequently use Ctrl-Shift-M to mute or unmute my microphone, Ctrl-K to quickly switch between conversations, and Ctrl-Alt-Up Arrow/Down Arrow to switch between servers.)
Use a shortcut to view a list of all of Discord's chat commands
If you're ancient enough to remember IRC (Internet Relay Chat) servers, then you're probably familiar with chat commands that let you make a statement, add a shrugging emoji to your words, and so on. Apps such as Discord have brought some of those chat commands to the modern era, and you can use quite a few of them in the app. Start your Discord message with /spoiler to mark your message as a spoiler, hiding the contents until someone clicks the text. This is great when you're discussing plot points from books, movies, or games and don't want to ruin them for others. Similarly, you can try /shrug, /sticker, /tableflip, and other commands.
What do you think so far?
The full list of chat commands can be seen by typing a forward slash (/) in the text box; Discord will also explain what these commands do. I use this regularly to search for stickers, gifs, and to add spoiler tags. You can also use Markdown shortcuts to format your messages in Discord. The company has a detailed support page explaining Markdown commands and how you can use them to quickly add bullets, numbered lists, bold, italics, headers, and code blocks to your messages.
Use bots to automate your Discord server to send reminders, set up joint games, and more
Discord lets you add bots to your server, which is great for automation. If you have an upcoming garage sale, are hosting a workshop, or organizing a watch party, you can set up bots to send reminders to members. Other bots let you play music for server members to listen together, play games in the server, and even use AI services without leaving Discord. MEE6 is a highly customizable bot that can handle several automation tasks for you, but that's just one of many options. (For more, check out the Discord Bot List.) If you have some coding know-how, you can follow Discord's guide to building your own bot, too. While it's nice to add multiple bots to your servers, I recommend against adding too many—they'll create unwanted alerts and clutter.
Use this app to watch YouTube with friends on Discord
Discord has many apps that let you watch videos, listen to music, or play games together. I really like Watch Together, which lets you watch YouTube videos with your friends. You can add it by clicking your server's name up top, and selecting App Directory, where you'll find Watch Together in the list of featured apps. Once it's added to your server, open any channel, select the apps button in the text box, and select Watch Together. You'll now see a YouTube feed, and you can use the search bar to add videos you wish to watch with others.
Create your own server to use custom Discord emoji for free
To use custom emoji in Discord, you normally have to pay for a Nitro subscription. However, you can create your own server for free, and use custom emoji there without paying. The catch is that you can't import those custom emoji for use in other servers. You can get started by creating a server in Discord. Just click the + button in the left pane of the app, select Create My Own, and follow the on-screen instructions to get the job done. Once your server is up and running, click the name of the server at the top of the screen, select Server Settings > Emoji. Click the Upload Emoji button, and you can upload transparent PNG files to get started. You can add up to 50 custom emoji and an additional 50 animated emoji without paying.
Amuse yourself with these Discord Easter eggs
Credit: Pranay Parab
Discord has a bunch of Easter eggs that you should check out if you appreciate when an app offers a sense of fun. There are quite a few gaming-related references in here, so this is particularly interesting for gamers. Here are some of my favorites:
Discord Discord Revolution: Press Ctrl-/ to view the keyboard cheat sheet. Press any arrow key, Enter/Return, or the space bar key to hear different notes. This is a reference to the game Dance Dance Revolution.
Street Fighter animation: With Discord open on your computer, press Ctrl-/ to open the keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet. Now, press this key combination: H, H, right arrow, N, K. You'll see the Raging Demon animation from Street Fighter's Akuma.
Lo-fi beats with Wumpus: Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-W to listen to lo-fi beats with Discord's mascot Wumpus.
Discordo: Press Discord's app icon in the top-left corner 16 times to hear an audio clip that says, "Discordo."
Copy combo: Click your username in the bottom-left corner of Discord's app. In the pop-up, click the Copy button next to your username, and it'll say, "Copied!" Repeat this multiple times and you'll see a new message each time. The final message is "Beyond Godlike."
You can find many more Discord Easter eggs on this Fandom page.
