How to Hide Channels in Discord

When setting up channels on your server, it may be nice to make it less confusing to newer members. Having too many channels but only enabling newbies to enter a handful can be initially overwhelming. The solution to this would be to hide all channels from certain roles and set up some role-exclusive channels.

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

It’s really not all that complicated. Besides, putting in the work early ensures a smoother operation once the server becomes a booming community. There are some things that you may wish to keep from prying eyes that simply don’t concern certain members on the server. You may need to conduct a bit of business between yourself and those most trusted and this would be the best way to go about it.

Hidden & Role-Exclusive Channels

Setting up role-exclusive channels and the ability to hide specified channels is a far easier process than you’d think. Creating role-exclusive channels is a great way to separate roles with a certain sense of privilege. Hiding extra channels from the list keeps things nice and tidy.

Both options keep things simple for all members involved.

Creating A Role-Exclusive Channel

To begin this process, you’ll have to have created a certain role for the granted special access to the channel. We will assume that you’ve already created one in order to move ahead with the topic of discussion. Just be sure that the permissions for the role line up with those for the channel.

Secondly, you’ll need to assign that role to only those members you want to grant special access to the channel. This should go without saying but I’d like to be thorough so that nothing is skipped. You could wait to do this until after you’ve created the channel as it’s really up to you. Some users just prefer to get it out of the way early as this way you can test it immediately after creating it.

Now we can go ahead and create the “members only” channel(s) for your server. These can be either (or both) text channels and voice channels. Something like an ‘Admin Lounge’ or ‘Meeting Room’ where only those who have a bit of pull can attend. You can also make different channels for each tier of your server’s hierarchy but that is getting a bit ahead. For now, we’ll focus on one of each Text and Voice.

Creating A Role-Exclusive Text Channel:

1. Click on your server name just above the channel list.
   
2. From the menu select Create Channel.
   
3. Enter a name for the channel into the box labeled Channel Name.
   
4. Look for Private Channel and toggle the switch to ON then click Next.
   
5. On the next screen, you will have an option to choose which roles or members will have access to the channel. To select, check the box beside each of them.
   
6. When all the desired members or roles have been selected, click on the Create Channel button.
   
   

Now only those members with the specified roles enabled will have access to the channel. Those who do not have access will not even see it on their list. You’ve created a hidden channel.

Creating A Role-Exclusive Voice Channel:

The procedure for creating a role-exclusive voice channel is exactly the same as it is for a text channel. The only difference is that you’ll be selecting the radial for Voice Channel and not Text Channel in the Channel Type section.

Setting The Channel Permissions

The default permissions for the channel are directly connected to the highest role that you’ve enabled entry. By doing this, it makes life a little easier when it comes to setting up channel restrictions without having to directly set up channel restrictions.

If you’d like to take a look at the adjusted permissions for the channel, you can:

1. Click on the Cog icon next to the newly created channel.
   
2. From the left side menu, select the Permissions tab.
   
3. From here, you can see that the @everyone role has been denied permissions to View Channel. Only those roles that were enabled when creating the channel currently have this permission.
   • For Voice channel, the permission to Connect is also denied by default

Another slight variation from Text channels to Voice channels is that only Text channels will be completely hidden from those without access. A role-exclusive Voice channel will still be visible but when hovered over, will display a circle with a slash marking denied access.

Hiding Muted Channels

This particular gem is exclusive to each member and how they see the channels in the list. Well, those they have access to see anyway. The only caveat with this feature is that it only really works for channels that have been muted.

In essence, it’s just a great way to make a server’s channel list a bit more compact and features only those channels you really care about. You can go about muting channels in a couple of ways.

Muting A Channel

1. To mute a channel directly, you can click the Bell icon in the top-right corner. It’ll be to the left of the Pinned Messages icon and Member List icon.

The other way is to go through the server’s Notification Settings:

1. You’ll have to click the server name above the channel list and select it from the menu provided.
   
2. Scroll down the menu and click on the drop-down just below Notification Overrides.
3. Add the channels you’d like to mute. They will be added as a list in the area just below.
4. For every channel that you’d like to mute, click on the box under Mute found to the far-right.
   
5. Click the Done button when finished.

Hiding A Muted Channel

1. Once you’ve selected all of the channels that you want to be muted, you’ll need to click on the server name again.
2. At the bottom of the menu, you’ll see Hide Muted Channels, click this to make all muted channels disappear from your list.
3. In order to get them to reappear again, click the same option and uncheck Hide Muted Channels.

How to Create a Private Category

One great feature that may help you to hide channels from others is by creating a Private Category. Of course, you can also create a public category that better organizes your servers’ channels, but for the purposes of this article, we will show you how to make that viewable only by certain roles.

1. Click on the arrow in the upper right-hand corner, then select Create Category.
   
2. Name your category and toggle the Private Category button on. Then, click Next.
   
3. Now, select the roles you’d like to add.
4. Lastly, go back to the Server page and click on the new private category you created. Then, name the channel and add the proper parameters.
   

This is one of the faster ways to create a hidden channel in Discord. You can add only those who you want viewing the content like a channel for Admins only.

Also, since this is a category, you can add multiple channels including voice channels to keep important proprietary information all in one place and guarded from the users who do not belong in it.

Hidden Discord Channels

Hiding channels in Discord is easy. Which means you won’t have to look at them anymore when you’re tired of them. Also, if you ever need to unhide the channel, that’s equally as easy.