Being one of the most popular apps today, Discord is a brilliant way of communicating with your friends or fellow gamers, and creating a close community. However, with running an active Discord server also comes the pain and difficulty of managing a large number of messages, especially when the chat becomes inflammatory, or otherwise unacceptable.
Whether you want to remove just a couple of problematic messages or even clear your chats completely, here are some ways you can delete messages on Discord:
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Different types of Discord messages
Firstly, it’s important to note that Discord has two different types of messages, which work in distinct ways, with different rules:
- Direct Messages – private conversations between users
- Channel Messages – text chat that is shared with the entire group on a specific channel
Although Discord did have an option to mass delete messages when it first rolled out, this feature caused certain technical difficulties that resulted in its removal. And while it might not be as simple as it used to, it’s still possible to delete the messages on your Discord server.
Clearing a Discord Chat – Direct Messages
Technically, you can’t permanently delete Direct Messages in Discord; the copy of the chat will still remain on the Discord servers, as well as the other person’s chat panel. However, you can delete your local copy of the chat from your history. Here’s how:
- Right click on the user you exchanged Direct Messages with, and then select Message. The Direct Messages panel will now appear.
- On the left side of the screen, hover the cursor over the conversation, and then click the X button that appears.
- The conversation will now be deleted, at least on your end.
Clearing a Discord Chat – Channel Messages
Although there are several ways to delete Channel Messages on Discord, the two methods described below are the most common options:
Deleting messages manually
The easiest method for deleting Channel Messages is to do so manually, by following these steps:
- Open the text channel that contains the messages you wish to delete.
- Hover the cursor over a specific message until a three-dot icon appears on the right.
- Tap on the three-dot icon, and then select Delete.
- A new window will now open, asking you to confirm the action. Press the Delete button to finish, and remove the message.
- Repeat this process for each individual message you want to delete.
Note: While this method will work quite efficiently for deleting shorter chats or a couple of problematic messages, it might not be the best option for larger quantities of Channel Messages.
Using a Discord bot
The second most popular method of deleting Channel Messages on Discord is by using a bot specifically designed for clearing chats.
Although there are a large number of bots available, the MEE6 is currently the most popular option. Here’s how to use it:
- Log into your Discord server, and then go to the MEE6 website.
- Choose the Add to Discord option, and press Authorize to enable the bot to operate on your server.
- Then, select the appropriate server.
- MEE6 will now ask for permissions to delete Discord messages. Press Authorize when prompted.
- Allow the Moderation plugin in the MEE6 control panel. Once authorized, you can use a number of simple commands to clear messages.
For instance, you can use “!clear 1000” to remove the last 1000 messages on the channel, or even “!clear @username” to remove the last 100 messages from a particular user. You can also change the number to the exact amount of messages you wish to delete, but the limit is 1000.
This is, without a doubt, the quickest and easiest way to clear a Discord chat, and remove a large number of messages at once.
Even though completely deleting messages in a simple manner doesn’t seem to be all that possible on Discord, one of the methods mentioned above will hopefully allow you to clear some of your Discord chats.
