May 11, 2022

Controlling Your Experience

Four steps to a super safe account

On Discord, you get to choose the friends and communities you talk with. A key part of making this happen is knowing how you can set up your account. Our tips below can help you keep your account safe.

1. Secure your account

First, we need to ensure that your account credentials and login information are as secure as possible.

Choose a secure password

Having a strong password is key to protecting your account. Choose a long password with a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and special characters that is hard to guess and that you don’t use for anything else.
We recommend checking out password managers like 1Password (Mac) or Dashlane (Windows), which make creating and storing secure passwords extremely easy.
Discord will require your password to be at least 8 characters long. Certain regions in the world may have additional requirements.

Consider enabling two-factor authentication (2FA)

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is the most secure way to protect your account. You can use Google Authenticator, Authy, and other authenticator apps on a mobile device in order to authorize access to your account. Once 2FA is enabled, you’ll have the option to further increase your account’s security with SMS Authentication by adding your phone number to your Discord account.
You can enable 2FA in your User Settings. You can also refer to this article for more information.

2. Set your privacy & safety settings

Your settings are very important. They give you control over who can contact you and what they can send you. You can access your privacy and safety settings in the Privacy & Safety section of your User Settings.

We know it’s important for users to understand what controls they have over their experience on Discord and how to be safer. Part of delivering a better, safer experience is making sure people don’t see content they don’t want to – whether that’s intrusive spam or unwanted sensitive media. This article covers settings that can help reduce the amount of unwanted content you see on Discord and promote a safer environment for everyone.

Sensitive media

At any time, you can further configure personal settings to blur or block content in DMs that may be sensitive. The “blur” option in our sensitive content filters applies to all historic and new media. For teen users, by default, Discord will blur media that may be sensitive in direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (GDMs) from friends, as well as in servers. Adults can opt into these filters by changing their sensitive media preferences in Privacy & Safety Settings. Learn more about how to do this here. For all users, the default configuration is “block” for direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (GDMs) from non-friends.

At any time, you can also block the user responsible and report the content that violates our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.

DM spam filter

Automatically send direct messages that may contain spam into a separate spam inbox.

These filters are customizable and you can choose to turn them off. By default, these filters are set to “Filter direct messages from non-friends.” Choose “Filter all direct messages” if you want all direct messages that you receive to be filtered, or select “Do not filter direct messages” to turn these filters off.

Direct messages (DM) settings

You might only want certain people to contact you. By default, whenever you’re in a server with someone else, they can send you a direct message (DM).
You can toggle off the "Allow direct messages from server members" setting to block DMs from users in a server who aren’t on your friends list. When you toggle this setting off, you will be prompted to choose if you would like to apply this change to all of your existing servers. If you click "No," you’ll need to adjust your DM settings individually for each server that you have joined prior to toggling this setting off.
To change this setting for a specific server, select Privacy Settings on the server’s dropdown list and toggle off the "Allow direct messages from server members" setting.

Friend request settings

The last thing to do in your security settings is determine who can send you a friend request. You can find these settings in the Friend Requests section of your User Settings.

Everyone - Selecting this means that anyone who knows your Discord Tag or is in a mutual server with you can send you a friend request. This is handy if you don’t share servers with someone and you want to let them friend you with just your Discord Tag.
Friends of Friends - Selecting only this option means that for anyone to send you a friend request, they must have at least one mutual friend with you. You can view this in their user profile by clicking the Mutual Friends tab next to the Mutual Servers tab.
Server Members - Selecting this means users who share a server with you can send you a friend request. Deselecting this while "Friends of Friends" is selected means that you can only be added by someone with a mutual friend.

If you don’t want to receive ANY friend requests, you can deselect all three options. However, you can still send out friend requests to other people.

You should only accept friend requests from users that you know and trust — if you aren’t sure, there’s no harm in rejecting the friend request. You can always add them later if it’s a mistake.

3. Follow safe account practices

As with any online interaction, we recommend following some simple rules while you’re on Discord:

Be wary of suspicious links and files

DON'T click on links that look suspicious or appear to have been shortened or altered. Discord will try and warn you about links that are questionable, but it’s no substitute for thinking before you click.
DON'T download files or applications from users you don't know or trust. Were you expecting a file from someone? If not, don’t click the file!
DON'T open a file that your browser or computer has flagged as potentially malicious without knowing it’s safe.

Never give away your account information

DON'T give away your Discord account login or password information to anyone. We’ll never ask for your password. We also won’t ask for your token, and you should never give that to anyone.
DON'T give away account information for any account you own on any platform to other users on Discord. Malicious individuals might ask for this information and use it to take over your accounts.
DO report any accounts who claim to be Discord staff or who ask for account information to the Trust & Safety team.

Again, Discord will never ask you for your password either by email or by Discord direct message. If you believe your account has been compromised, submit a report to Trust & Safety here.

4. Block other users when needed

We understand that there are times when you might not want to interact with someone. We want everyone to have a positive experience on Discord and have you covered in this case.

How blocking works

When you block someone on Discord, they will be removed from your friends list (if they were on it) and will no longer be able to send you DMs.
Any message history you have with the user will remain, but any new messages the user posts in a shared server will be hidden from you, though you can see them if you wish.

How to block a user

On desktop:

Right-click the user's @Username to bring up a menu.
Select Block in the menu.

On mobile:

Tap the user's @Username to bring up the user's profile.
Tap the three dots in the upper right corner to bring up a menu.
Select Block in the menu.

If you have blocked a user but they create a new account to try and contact you, please report the user to the Trust & Safety team. You can learn more about how to do this at this link.

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Tags:

User Safety

Privacy

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