Since its launch in 2015, Discord has exploded into one of the world‘s most active and vibrant online communities. The free chat and communication platform now boasts over 150 million monthly active users, spread across 19 million+ active servers.
Originally focused around gaming, Discord has expanded into an general purpose hangout for all types of groups, subcultures, and demographics. Its lightweight flexibility combined with an extensive set of features has fueled incredible growth.
However, hiding beneath Discord‘s fun, playful exterior lies an incredibly powerful set of developer tools and capabilities. By flipping a single switch, you gain access to a wealth of options for enhancing, managing, and scaling your servers in ways you never thought possible.
Let‘s dive into exactly how to enable these developer superpowers, what functionality you unlock, and how developers around the world are pushing Discord‘s boundaries:
Overview: Enabling Discord‘s Developer Mode
Turning on Developer Mode takes just a few clicks, but opens up a treasure trove of advanced configuration options:
User Settings > Advanced > Developer Mode [ON]That‘s all it takes!
Depending on use case, developers can then programmatically tap into Discord using official APIs or access a range of handy internal tools for managing servers and chatting in new ways.
Here‘s an at-a-glance overview of core capabilities unlocked with Developer Mode activated:
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| View Technical IDs | User, message, channel, server, and other IDs exposed for debugging |
| Message Timestamps | Dates and times for every message exposed |
| Advanced Logging | Technical logs and diagnostics for troubleshooting issues |
| Custom CSS | Inject custom stylesheet tweaks into the Discord client |
| Bot Development | Build, test, and manage custom bots on your server |
Next, let‘s walk step-by-step how to enable these developer goodies…
Step 1: Access User Settings
The starting point to enabling Developer Mode is accessed your User Settings panel. Here‘s how to access it on both desktop and mobile:
Desktop: Click the Gear icon ⚙️ in the bottom left
Mobile: Tap your profile picture down bottom then Settings
User Settings access on mobile and desktop
This will open your user control panel, which manages everything about your individual account. Now to venture into more advanced settings…
Step 2: Navigate to Advanced Settings
On the left sidebar within Settings, click on Advanced to reveal more technical configuration options. This exposes Developer Mode and other functionality typically reserved for advanced users and behind-the-scenes management.
Accessing Discord‘s Advanced settings
Take time to explore all of the options now available here such as controlling data options, notifications, tagging, safety features, and more. But the main event lies just ahead…
Step 3: Toggle On Developer Mode
Here it is – the magical switch that unlocks a whole new level of Discord customization and control.
Under the Advanced tab, turn the Developer Mode toggle to the ON position to activate the suite of new tools. And voila! You can now wield the full might of Discord‘s hidden developer powers.
The coveted Developer Mode switch
Note that you may need to restart Discord for some of the functionality to take effect.
Troubleshooting Enabling Dev Mode
If you don‘t see the Developer Mode option at all, double check you are on the most up-to-date version of Discord. This feature must be accessed via either the desktop application or mobile app.
The Discord web version and web browser extensions do not include the Developer Mode switch. Ensure you have the dedicated app.
With Developer Powers unlocked, let‘s examine how you can start flexing your new muscle…
New Superpowers Unlocked: Features Overview
Here are just some of the many ways Developer Mode supercharges your Discord experience:
View Technical Identifiers
Ever wanted to grab the unique ID attached to a specific user, message, channel, or server? Developer Mode now displays these programmatically-friendly IDs for easy reference while developing tools.
No more guessing game of what code relates to what resource. Just click any server, channel, user, or message to instantly reveal its ID!
Message Timestamps
Previously hidden message timestamps are now visible, denoting exactly when any message was sent chronologically. This helps provide context and traceability.
Timestamps activate automatically once Developer Mode is enabled. Hover over any message to see its creation date.
Access Advanced Debug Logs
Events happening behind the scenes on Discord are now also revealed through technical debug logs and diagnostics.
This arms developers with way more context and examples for how the platform operates under the hood. Tweak configs and instantly view verbose outputs showing how Discord handles your changes.
CSS Mods & Client Customization
Discord supports surprisingly deep customization and styling tweaks which can be activated through Developer Mode.
Inject custom CSS or JavaScript to radically transform the look, feel, and functionality of your client. Shared "themes" and tweaks allow matching your whole server‘s appearance.
The possibilities here are endless!
Bot Development Sandbox
And perhaps most excitingly, Developer Mode finally grants permission to develop, test, and deploy your very own Discord bots!
Bots are scripted programs that run inside Discord Servers and provide automated moderation, assistance, entertainment, and tools. They unlock practically infinite possibilities.
We‘ll explore some of what makes bots so powerful next…
Building Custom Bots: Automate Nearly Any Task
Among developers, one of the most game-changing elements unlocked by Developer Mode is easy access to bot creation and coding capabilities.
Discord bots are automated users that can be invited to perform virtually any action you program them to do! Nearly every popular server runs multiple bots handling key tasks to improve efficiency and conversation.
Here are just some examples of invaluable jobs orchestrated automatically by custom coded bots:
- Moderation – Automatically warn, timeout, or ban members breaking rules
- Logging – Keep diligent records of all important server events
- Information – Provide rich context via embeds and web data scraping
- Entertainment – Generate memes, videos, jokes, polls, contests, giveaways…
- Community Building – Welcome messages, polls, reminders, phone trees
- Ecommerce – Facilitate selling merch, tickets, gear, etc.
- Learning – Teach coding or languages through interactive lessons
And literally anything else you can dream up! Bots are limited solely by the imagination of developers.
Popular frameworks like Discord.js make launching bots accessible to coders of all skill levels. Here‘s a quick example:
// Respond to a !hello command
client.on(‘message‘, msg => {
if (msg.content === ‘!hello‘) {
msg.reply(‘Hi there!‘);
}
});The Discord developer community has already built over 530,000 public bots…but that number continues accelerating as the platform spreads into mainstream.
Trends: Explosive Bot Adoption
Discord bots have absolutely exploded in popularity as the platform‘s reach expands. Just take a look at the hockey stick growth curve tracking over 100,000 open source Discord repos on GitHub:
Discord bot development trend (source: [Rolph rectus](https://rolphi.io/blog/discord 2020)
Public repositories represent just a tiny fraction of total bots running globally across millions of active servers as well.
While early bot development focused on gaming servers and communities, recently trending categories include:
- 🤖 Moderation – Keep conversations productive
- 📣 Community – Engagement & governance tools
- 💰 Ecommerce – Sell merch, tickets, gear, NFTs
- 🧙♂️️ Education – Interactive coding schools!
Diving deeper, popular public bots on GitHub alone have now surpassed 3 billion total installs – a number which grows every second.
The launch of Discord Bot List and directories has fueled distribution and sharing of best-in-class bots across servers. Developers battle to make bots go viral based on uniqueness, utility, and robustness.
And if these exponential growth charts are any indication, we‘re still just barely scratching the surface of what‘s possible by combining custom coded bots with Discord‘s flexible messaging platform.
Closing Thoughts: Wield Power Responsibly
As with any great power held by developers, enabling Discord‘s hidden functionality also comes with great responsibility.
Access to other users‘ data must be carefully managed according to Discord‘s Terms and for explicitly authorized purposes only. Failure to self-govern risks restrictions for the whole community.
However, with ethical data usage and creative problem solving in mind, Developer Mode moves Discord from fun chat app into a category all its own – underlying framework for developers to mold global communication.
The future looks bright as new use cases like blockchain integration, bots facilitating event coordination among thousands, and even more immersive community experiences come online each day.
Today, the most innovative and impactful social platforms are backed by empowered developer communities. By investing heavily in its dev ecosystem through channels like Discord Hack Week – where internal developers ship wild experiments using the API themselves – Discord seems poised to continue massive growth.
Bottom line: if you can dream it, Developer Mode lets you build it. So what are you waiting for? Unlock your creativity through Discord‘s hidden developer toolbox today.
