How to View Discord Messages

Even though viewing messages on Discord is relatively straightforward, several options have been added to expand messaging functionality. Knowing how to take advantage of these options would be a great help to any intrepid community manager.

In this article, we’ll show you the ins and outs of how to view Discord messages, and gives you a heads up on maximizing its utility.

Discord Messaging

The Discord messaging platform shares a lot of similarities to other popular message apps. You type a message in the text box, press enter, and the message appears on the window.

Members of the channel can do the same unless you’ve restricted their ability to send messages.

You can delete any message you’ve sent by hovering over the text until the editing icons appear.

The first icon allows you to add an emoticon. The second gives you the ability to edit the message you just typed. The last offers several more functions as shown in the image below:

The functions of each option are as follows:

1. Edit Message: Allows you to edit the message.
2. Pin Message: inning a message marks it as important. Anyone who enters a server where a message is pinned will be alerted to the same. Clicking on the Pinned Messages icon on the upper left part of the message box allows people to see all pinned messages.
   
3. Quote: Copies the message to the text input box. This also includes the name of the author of the message. This gives you an easy way to share a message that another user has typed.
   
4. Mark Unread: This marks a message as new. If you’ve enabled unread message alerts, a red dot will be shown on the Discord icon in the taskbar.
   
5. Copy Message Link: This gives you a hyperlink to the message, copying it to the clipboard. You can paste this link even outside Discord. Anyone clicking the link will be sent to the Discord website and to the message itself.
6. Delete Message: Deletes the message.

Direct Messages

There’s another message type that discord offers called DM’s or Direct Messages. These are private messages sent from one user directly to another. Direct messages don’t show up on the server chat, and can instead be accessed on its separate window.

To access the DM window, Click the Home icon, which is your portrait on the upper left. This will show you a list of your friends, and the direct messages that you currently have.

Clicking on the portrait of a friend will open the Direct Message window. From here you can proceed to have a private conversation with that person.

Do note though that direct messaging may be blocked by other users. If another user or even a friend has prevented DM’s then you can’t send them a direct message.

To do this yourself, follow these steps:

1. Click the gear icon near your username to open User Settings.
   
2. At the menu on the left, select Privacy & Safety.
   

Choose which setting you want.

Discord scans content for potentially unsafe work content. The Keep me safe option will scan all messages that you receive. The My friends is a nice option that will scan any message that doesn’t come from your listed friends. The I live on the edge option doesn’t scan anything and will allow all messages through.

Clicking on the Allow direct messages from server members under the Server privacy defaults menu will either block or allow DM’s from others.

Mark Messages as Read

Sometimes you may find yourself with too many messages that reading them each individually would be inconvenient. Discord provides a solution by allowing users to mark entire servers as read. Here’s how:

1. Go to the server list on the left.
2. Right-click on the server that you want to mark as read
3. Select Mark as Read.
   

You can do this for all servers that have messages unread. If a server has no new messages, the option will be grayed out.

Mentions

Discord has another type of message alert called the Mentions. When typing a message, you can alert another person that you’re referring to them specifically or want to bring their attention to your message. To do this, input the @ symbol followed by the name of the person you’re mentioning.

Typing @ in the input box gives you a list of people that you can mention:

As shown, @everyone will notify all members of the channel, @here will notify all members that are currently online, and @ followed by a username will notify that specific user.

You can access any messages that you’ve been mentioned in by clicking Discord’s mention tab. This is the @ symbol at the upper left corner of the Discord window. Any messages you’re mentioned in will stay in that window for up to seven days, after which they will be deleted.

A Versatile Communication Tool

The Discord app has proven itself to be a versatile, dependable communication tool for thousands of online groups. Knowing how to navigate the messaging options helps both server members and administrators manage their communities effectively.

Do you know other ways to view Discord messages? Do you have opinions on the messaging system that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.