Are you new to Discord? This post is going to cover the bare basics of Discord, how to use it, settings and other kinks and tricks that you should know before venturing out into the world of Discord. Let’s go.

Source: https://discordapp.com/branding

MAKING YOUR FIRST ACCOUNT:

To sign up for Discord, go to https://discordapp.com/ and look around the site for a bit. You’ll then see “Open Discord.” Click that and it will redirect you to https://discordapp.com/login. Click “Register” below the boxed which will redirect you to https://discordapp.com/register and make your account.

Congratulations! You just made your first account. I’ll be showing the downloaded version of Discord which is the same as the web version and for future posts, the Android version as there are some differences between the two.

WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME:

Your home should look a bit something like this. There are a few things I would like to point out first. The area in black to the left is your server bar. You can switch back to your most recently viewed channel by using Ctrl+K. This is really useful if you have 2 people talking to you at once, trying to get your attention while you’re trying to make a blog post or doing some gambling with bots or doing some other weird thing. Anyways, on to the numbers and what each of them is.

1. That shows your username and a 4 digit code called a discriminator. This is a number that cannot be changed unless you purchase Discord Nitro or change your username to a username of someone else with that same discriminator (it changes it for you). Try to remember your discriminator as you will need this to add people like IRL friends that aren’t already in a server with you.
2. The mute button. This is used while you’re in a voice channel but can be used pre-emptively to not disturb anyone in the room. If your parents walk in on you, this is your best friend if you choose not to have push to talk.
3. The deafen button. This function automatically mutes you if you do it yourself and prevents any sounds from the voice channel from being heard. Remember the previous situation? If your parents walk in on you and you’re not wearing earbuds or headphones, this is your best friend.
4. The setting button. This button will be covered in a bit but it’s where all the personalization things are.
5. The Add Friend button is where you go to add friends using their username and discriminator combination.

THE SIMS: DISCORD EDITION:

Now you are settled in your new home, you just have to move the furniture into place and make it your place AKA adjust your settings. Let’s dive into that.

(This part is after ProjectBlurple was launched which is why my profile picture is different).

Running it down from top to bottom;

• Username is the username + discriminator combo
• Email is my email
• Edit allows you to change your password, username and email that everything is sent to.
• Two-Factor Authentification is something that will require a bit of explaining.

When first enabled, 2FA will give a list of eight 8 digit backup codes that you can use in case you need to log in again. These 8 can be refreshed and changed for a new set of 8 codes. There is also a 6 digit code that you need to access through your phone using an app like Google Authenticator which can be used for other accounts alongside Discord. This code refreshes every 15 seconds or so, so be quick or wait for the next one. To see these backup codes on your computer, search through your Discord files until you see a file called discord_backup_codes.txt. If you are using the browser version, disable 2FA using your current password.

NOTE: Do not use spaces or dashes when entering your code. It will not work then.

For more information on 2FA, check out these posts from Discord:

https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001221072-Lost-Two-Factor-Codes

Last up is SMS Authentication. This just sends a text to your phone which is a verification code that you type in to log in. It’s pretty much like 2FA.

For the rest of the settings, I won’t be screenshotting it because that would take a long time and it’s better for you to check it out for yourself and fiddle around with the options to find what fits you. I’m just going to briefly run down the rest of the options as 2FA is one of the most important things and needed a lot of explaining.

Privacy and Safety:

This allows you to set who to scan direct messages from to keep you safe from the bad stuff, change if people in the same server and DM you without being friends and who can add you as a friend.

Authorized Apps:

This shows a list of apps that you have authorized to do certain things like see a list of servers you’re in or access your username and avatar. This is mainly for bots if you have decided to add them to your server as it requires authorization but other things like websites with Discord integration also require this.

Connections:

Allows you to connect other accounts to Discord. This will also show it on your profile and will give others the option to join you if possible for them but this can be disabled.

Discord Nitro:

This is the paid subscription service to Discord that allows you to do many cool things like change your discriminator, use emotes from other servers without the use of global emotes and it adds a cool flair to the profile when people look at it.

Voice and Video:

Allows you to change the voice call and video settings from things like microphone and what kind of input you use (push to talk or voice activity) and what camera you use for video calls and other options like attenuation, voice processing and using an older legacy audio system.

Overlay:

Change what you see and how you see other people.

Notifications:

Change the notifications you receive.

Keybinds:

Shortcuts galore.

Games:

This is similar to connections except it displays the game based off of the files in your computer. If there isn’t a game there that should be or you want to change the name of a non-verified game to something else, that is possible. Verified games’ names cannot be changed to my knowledge.

Text and Images:

You can change image and emoji display here.

Appearance:

If you’ve ever wanted to go blind by using light mode, you can do so here. This tab also allows you to change the text font size and gives you the option to enable Developer Mode.

Developer mode is really useful as it allows you to copy the IDs of users, servers, messages and messages with channels. Once enabled, right click on a user, server or message and click “Copy ID.” If you are sending a report to Discord that requires a message, hold shift when you copy the ID of the message and you will get the channel ID as well.

Streamer Mode:

Stuff for streamers. Check it out if you plan to stream in the future.

Language:

Change “Hello” to “Bonjour.”

Windows Settings:

Startup options and minimizing can be changed here.

Change Log:

A list of changes from the latest update will be displayed by clicking this button.

Log Out:

Log out of your account to another one to troll people on an alternate account.

That’s pretty much all there is to Discord. If you haven’t started using Discord, you should probably do so because it’s the best thing you can do as you’ll make new friends and join communities that you wouldn’t have imagined.

And with all that, thanks for reading.

MAXIMUM RESPECT