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.
Use this hidden shortcut to see all of Discord’s keyboard shortcuts at once
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?