Discord

Discord is a cross-platform voice and text chat app originally designed for gamers, but since finding mainstream popularity, all kind of communities have migrated to it. Even TechSpot staff have moved away from Slack to use Discord full-time for team collaboration and communication.

Is Discord better than Zoom?

Zoom and Discord serve two different purposes. Discord is great for small and big team communication and collaboration via text or voice. Zoom is better suited for real-time online meetings and presentations.

Is Discord only for gamers?

Discord is great for gaming and voice chat. That's how Discord got started but today all kinds of communities have migrated to it. Just like Microsoft Teams or Slack, Discord offers public and private servers that anyone can create and join for free, and today it's widely used for team communication and collaboration.

Is Discord encrypted?

Discord uses basic encryption methods like TLS to protect text and images in transit but does not offer end-to-end encryption like WhatsApp or Telegram. Other community oriented platforms offer similar safety features for written messages, but some like Microsoft Teams do offer end-to-end encryption for VoIP calls.

Is Discord free?

Discord is free for voice, text, and video chat options with no restrictions. There is an optional "Nitro" paid membership that offers extra benefits, but even setting up a private server for your business can be done with no additional cost.

Is Discord safe?

Although Discord is a great messaging app, the platform does not offer end-to-end encryption for text or audio/video communication. While your data is encrypted in transit to Discord servers, it is stored on said servers. Even when you use the app's privacy settings to disable their ability to "Use data to improve Discord," they still collect this data and store it in their database.

Discord Nitro Basic and Nitro: What's the Difference?

Our most-popular Nitro plan unlocks access to all the available Nitro perks, including custom emoji and stickers anywhere, HD video streaming, and an expanded selection of our newly-released Activities, just to name a few.

Nitro Basic includes a selection of some of the most-loved Nitro features that help you better express yourself on Discord, including custom emoji anywhere, bigger file uploads, and more.

We're excited to continue growing Nitro and give users more ways to have fun and create lasting memories on Discord. In the United States, Nitro Basic will be available for $2.99 per month. For those living outside the United States, pricing is viewable within your User Settings > Nitro page once it's rolled out.

Features

Discord was created to bring people together around games. You've taught us that it can be used for so much more. People use Discord for all kinds of hanging out: from live karaoke nights, to screenshare group painting, to virtual wedding parties. People create Discord servers for gaming, yoga classes, comedy fan clubs, and even run entire podcasting businesses. Discord is for anyone who could use a place to talk with their friends and communities.

Download Discord and experience modern chat:

• Voice chat: Join voice channels and chat with your group
• Real-time messaging: Share video, images, and text in rich chat
• Push notifications: Never miss a thing with @mentions and direct messages
• Instant Invite: Easily add friends to your voice server by sharing the Instant Invite link
• Direct messages: Send one-to-one private messages
• Multiple server support: Manage all your game chat groups in one client
• Organizable channels: Keep discussions on topic through structured communication

What's New

Welcome to Patch Notes! In this series, we comb through the newest changes in performance, reliability, responsiveness, usability, and general bug-squishing we've done to make Discord better.

If you discover a bug of your own, check out our Bimonthly Bug Megathread on the community-run r/DiscordApp subreddit. Tell us what's been bothering you, and our Engineering team will be more than happy to check it out.

Those who love living on the edge can opt into the TestFlight version of Discord and try out the latest features before they release on iOS. Help us squish some pesky bugs! It's like your uncle works at Discord. Find it at dis.gd/testflight.

All fixes listed below have been committed and merged, but may still be rolling out to individual platforms at the time of this post.

Highlights

• macOS updated to Discord 1.0.0 Build 0.0.389
• We've made a change that delays automatically updating the desktop client on Windows until we flag a release as mandatory or you fall several versions behind. This means you won't be forced to update as often when you start Discord up, making sure you're able to get into chat or voice as fast as possible. If you ever want to force an update, you can always click the green arrow indicator on the top-right of the app. (If you're here reading this, you probably instinctively click it anyway.)
• We've added Online Status Indicators to Quick Switcher search results! Now, when you look for your conversation with someone in the Quick Switcher, you'll see that user's online status without having to open their DM first!
• We've resolved a longstanding limitation of our iOS app that could cause Notifications to not clear properly when they're read on another device. The requirements to cause this were niche enough to prevent this from happening often, but we were finally able to clear most of it up. And for the cases that still pop up, the app will clear these unnecessary notifications on the next Discord app launch.
• Ever wanted to buy a shiny new Nameplate, but weren't sure if that "Cat Beans" Nameplate you're eyeing fit the vibe of every server? Well, you're now able to set a unique Nameplate on each server you're in, not just "one size fits all." Enjoy!

General

• We've added search and filtering functions to the Shop! No more infinitely scrolling to find that oldie-but-a-goodie collectible your friend showed you.
• Dismissing the in-game overlay should now properly return focus to the game.
• The "New" badge on the Server List was starting to drift away, slowly moving several pixels up the server list. It's back where it should be… for now.
• Cleaned up some inconsistent badge bordering on the Nitro Home page.
• Fixed a bug that could cause navigating backwards on iOS to end up at a blank screen.
• Fixed an issue that caused sharing invites from a server's invite setting page on Android to double-render the invite URL and fail to reference the channel type properly.
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Favorite Emoji" option to disappear from the right-click context menu for custom emoji.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the GIF picker from closing properly after sending a GIF on iOS.
• Fixed an alignment issue for the header image tooltip in Announcement Channels.
• We fixed a bug where some users had an undismissible badge on the Home screen on Desktop. The undismissible has been dismissed.
• Resolved an issue that could prevent the deletion of Onboarding questions.
• Fixed an issue that caused the "Reset to Default" button in appearance settings to be disabled when size is set to 87.5%. Oddly specific, but ok.
• Fixed an issue where keyboard navigation on the Server Settings page always really, really wanted you to go to the App Directory.
• Fixed… unnecessary… ellipsizing.. on Desktop for the buttons in the Multi Factor Auth modal.
• Resolved an inconsistency in the character limit for Server Descriptions based on server type.
• Fixed alignment issues in the "Sort & View" sheet for Forum Channels on iOS.
• Fixed an issue on the desktop client that could cause a blank window to render while the app was still updating.
• Fixed an issue with theming consistency in Overlay context menus and tooltips.
• Resolved issues with pasting content in various modals and screens that resulted in unintuitive behavior.
• Resolved visual bugs with widget animations in the in-game overlay when shown or hidden.
• Fixed navigation issues on Android when swiping between different tabs in the Channel Details screen.
• Fixed an issue that prevented tapping on a channel's header or the search button when creating a thread from Channel Details.
• Fixed a bug that prevented users at their server cap from joining activities or events via server invites for servers they were already in.
• Resolved padding issues for active users on the Overlay's voice widget.
• Fixed an issue with being able to use the emoji picker in Channel Details when users didn't have permission to do so.
• Fixed the error message when attempting to edit a channel's topic without permission.
• Improved Quick Switcher's reliability when someone you're searching for is using per-server nicknames.
• Replaced an older Nitro logo in the Settings page with the more modern version. No more old and busted.
• Fixed a capitalization error in the "Search the shop" tooltip: shop → Shop. You'd be surprised how important the small things like this are!
• Fixed a bug that caused the Overlay to show all of the app's toast notifications.
• Resolved a bug that caused incorrect transparency on iOS when swiping back from Settings to the Home view.
• The search bar on iOS in the Settings panel no longer appears to just be floating in the background.
• Resolved an issue that caused discord.gg/invite links to not resolve properly on iOS and Android.
• Fixed a bug where the title bar on macOS didn't always render the traffic lights appropriately.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Overlay's Voice widget to disappear after dismissing the settings context menu.

Chat

• Sending a DM through the profile modal should now always render the DM in your chat view, helping prevent an issue that could cause messages to be sent without loading them into chat history.
• Resolved an issue with overlapping emoji in reply previews on iOS.
• Fixed an alignment issue with the "Slowmode is enabled" text near the message composer.
• Fixed a regression that prevented tapping to reveal spoiler tags on Android. We just knew you didn't actually want that show spoiled for you. You're welcome, honestly.
• Resolved an issue that caused your scroll position to reset when navigating to and from the same channel on Android.
• Fixed an issue that caused the typing indicator to render on top of your message's text while viewing chat history on Desktop.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the message composer to move under the keyboard on iOS when pasting a link.
• Fixed UX issues with how the message character limit is handled for the first message in a thread.
• Fixed a bug that could cause an empty banner where the unread message notification usually renders.
• Fixed a bug causing the "Jump to Latest Message" button on iOS to not re-position appropriately after the keyboard was dismissed.
• Resolved a bug that prevented users from long-pressing on code blocks on Android.
• Resolved an issue that caused the typing indicator to not render properly, or not render at all, in the Text in Voice chat popout.
• Discord invite URLs that are placed within code blocks should no longer render the invite embed.
• Fixed a bug on iOS where swiping on a chat element would also count as "tapping" it, as if you picked it as an option.
• Resolved a bug that caused channel links to not be contained properly within forum post previews in Forum Channels.
• Fixed an issue with how the Quick Switcher interacted with message drafts in DMs.
• Fixed a bug with the new day divider not always rendering in chat on iOS.
• Resolved a bug with too much padding in media channels on desktop.

Activities and Apps

• Fixed a bug that caused the glow around the App Launcher in the message composer to look… honestly, pretty terrible.
• Fixed a bug with embeds generated from Apps that would render User IDs instead of the relevant profiles in mentions.
• Right-clicking on an App in Server Settings no longer causes multiple tooltips to render.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the wrong Server Tag to appear in App interactions.
• Fixed a design regression in the Report App flow on the desktop client. No part specifically, just kinda… all of it. 😕
• Deleting an App should now navigate away from the deleted App's page once completed.

Audio/Video

• Resolved an issue on Android that disconnected some users after a while in the background, mostly commonly during long calls.
• We've added notifications to the RTC Panel on Desktop whenever Discord automatically changes input or output devices for you, such as when a Bluetooth headset disconnects.
• When you're in a call with both a stream and video, the volume slider for streams is no longer hidden behind the mini video previews.
• Resolved a bug that caused voice controls to sometimes overflow and render outside of the view.
• Fixed a bug that caused the camera flip button on iOS to not function properly.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Input/Output device menus in the Call interface to incorrectly resize during interaction.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the animation from a call PiP's view to full screen to start from the wrong position on Android.
• Fixed the fade animation for calls when the mouse leaves the call area. Elements should no longer pop out of existence, like that one file you tried to find a few weeks ago but couldn't figure out where you saved it.
• Fixed a bug that incorrectly caused a light-colored line to render at the top of the Call UX in Dark mode on Desktop. We weren't just trying to slowly convert you to light theme, one pixel row at a time.
• Fixed the Clips enabled container splitting into two lines incorrectly on Desktop.
• The "Watching Stream" button is now properly colored grey instead of green.

Media

• Saving video assets with query parameters will now save with an appropriate file extension on Android.
• Sharing multiple images to Discord via the iOS share sheet should now preserve the order of images properly.
• Fixed a bug when pasting file bundles or packages into Discord, where it would get stuck trying to upload them. We now communicate more clearly that we do not support uploading entire directories.
• Fixed a Desktop bug that caused some awkward spacing and element positioning when several narrow video files, like vertical videos, are uploaded all at once.
• Fixed an issue with the upload attachment modal on Desktop's corners bleeding out of the modal's border.
• Fixed an issue where multi-image embeds only showed the last image on iOS. You basically saw the punchline before the joke even started.
• Resolved an issue where animated emojis would flicker and restart animations when uploading media.
• Resolved a bug that prevented videos from appearing in mobile web clients.
• Resolved issue with image scaling in the Edit Image view.

Accessibility

• Fixed an issue that prevented dismissing the Emoji Picker properly through a screen reader after it was opened a second time.
• Fixed a bug with the "View Quests" button that caused it to have insufficient contrast in certain built-in themes.
• Resolved contrast issues with the "Sort & View" selector button in Forum channels on High Contrast mode.
• Fixed an issue with usernames becoming unreadable in High Contrast mode when saturation is set too low.
• Fixed an issue with particular Screen Readers not announcing Server Folders properly.
• Fixed a regression that caused the User Settings button to no longer have a label for screen readers on Desktop.
• The three-finger swipe gesture for VoiceOver should now properly work in chat.
• Fixed an issue where screen readers would return focus to the top of the screen if you decided to cancel logging out of Discord.
• GIF avatars should now properly respect GIF autoplay and Reduced Motion settings.
• Fixed an issue with Quest links not highlighting when using keyboard navigation.
• Fixed a bug that broke keyboard navigation completely when navigating the Account popout menu options.
• Fixed an issue that caused error messages in the Polls screen to not be properly announced by screen readers.
• Fixed a bug that caused screen readers to read Server Tags twice.
• Resolved several issues with the elements in the Settings Panel related to screen reader compatibility.
• Resolved issues with the VoiceOver two-finger Scrub gesture not registering properly in certain parts of the app.
• Deleting a user from the member list via Screen Reader should now present a status message.
• Resolved issues with navigation and roles for screen readers in Discord's own Role creation flow.
• Screen Readers should now inform users when a server has been created successfully.