How To Add Roles In Discord

If you manage a Discord server, you must know how to add and modify roles in Discord. It's very easy if you know where to look so here's a simple guide.

As soon as you’ve created your Discord server, you should immediately start configuring roles for your members.

A “Role” basically dictates what a member is allowed/not allowed to do within your server.

Think of it as access levels in a company. A new employee from the Sales team likely won’t have the same access to company files as the head of the Legal Department does, right?

The visual presentation below will help you visualize what roles are in the context of a Discord server.

roles in discord

Discord follows the same principle. For instance: you can set up roles that can create new channels on the server; and some that are purely in charge of banning members that violate the server’s rules.

Adding roles is crucial for those who want to effectively manage their servers. You may not need them for a private server with only a few members, but they are essential when you’re responsible for a large community with thousands of participants across several channels in your server.

Table of ContentsShow

Creating Roles

If you are the server owner you don’t need to worry about creating a role for yourself as you will always have access to everything.

The more important focus is to set up roles for your members. To do that, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the arrow beside your server name.
    Discord Add Role Clicking on arrow beside name to open a contextual menu
  2. Go to “Server Settings”.
    Discord Add Role Clicking on Server Settings menu item
  3. Click on “Roles”. Once you do, the Roles page will appear on the right side of the screen as shown here:
    Discord Add Role Opening the Roles settings pageA new server will always have one pre-made role available: @everyone. This role defines the permissions that are enabled for everyone in the server, regardless if they have other roles assigned to them. Consider this the “base-level” role for your server.
  4. To create a new role, click on the “+” button. You can rename this role anytime and even customize the role color. For this guide, we’ll use the name “Moderator”.
    Once you’re satisfied, you can assign which permissions are allowed for that role by toggling them on/off. You can find a list of available permissions at the Discord wiki page.
    Discord Add Role Toggling role permissions

Assigning Roles

Now that you’ve successfully created the desired roles, the next step is to assign them to your members:

  1. In the “Server Settings” sidebar, click on “Members”. The right side of the screen would show a list of all members in your server.
    Discord Add Role Assigning roles to server members
  2. Click on the “+” sign beside the member’s name which you want to assign a role. Choose the role you want to assign to that member. Keep in mind that you can assign multiple roles to one member as well.
    Discord Add Role Adding a role to a memberOnce you’ve chosen, the roles should appear beside the member’s name. If you made a mistake and want to remove a role, you can click on the “x” beside the role name.
    Discord Add Role Remove role from member

And there you go! You now have a basic understanding of how to use the Roles – Permissions feature of Discord to manage your server better. Make sure to experiment with different roles and permission combinations to find the ones that fit your group’s needs.

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Samuel Stewart

Samuel is GamingScan's editor-in-chief. He describes himself as a dedicated gamer and programmer. He enjoys helping others discover the joys of gaming. Samuel closely follows the latest trends in the gaming industry in order to keep the visitors in the flow.

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