It has sophisticated features and a huge range of options for personalization that have broadened its appeal beyond the gaming community.
Discord lets you create ‘servers’ – essentially group chats – that can contain 100,000 people, and this makes Discord a more intimate experience than other social media platforms for all kinds of communities to make friends and chat about their interests.
Because Discord is an open API, developers are able to alter a lot of the functionality and appearance of their app to make it an even more bespoke experience.
Plus, Discord has a wide range of customization options thanks to its built-in appearance themes and markup-based text formatting options for those with less technical know-how.
Just like many other popular messaging applications, Discord allows users to set a status. Plus, Discord automatically sets a status for you based on how you are interacting with the app in that current moment.
The status we’re going to be talking about today is the ‘Idle’ status. This looks like a crescent moon and appears next to your username and avatar in the right sidebar. If you’re new to Discord, you might be wondering what this status means.
Below, we’ll take a deeper look at the ‘Idle’ status on Discord as well as cover the range of statuses the app offers and how you can change your status to ‘Idle’ manually.
So What Exactly Does ‘Idle’ Mean On Discord?
Discord’s ‘Idle’ status indicates that you have not looked at any messages or been active on a server for around 5–10 minutes. The ‘Idle’ status doesn’t mean you’ve logged out of Discord, or that they have a lost connection to the internet.
Rather, Idle indicates that you are ‘AFK’ (Away From Keyboard).
Users may appear as ‘Idle’ when they have Discord open but they haven’t looked at it for a while, when they’re not near their device at all, or when they have Discord open in the background but are doing something else.
This is a useful status for other people on the server to see that you may not respond to messages straight away.
Other Types Of Discord Statuses
Online
The ‘Online’ status signals to other users that you are logged in and available to speak with. It indicates that you can readily respond to messages and receive notifications.
Phone
This status is a small, green smartphone icon that appears next to your avatar, and – as the name suggests – indicates that you’re logged in on your smartphone.
Custom
Discord lets you set a customized display message for the different kinds of statuses such as ‘Online,’ ‘Idle,’ ‘Invisible,’ and ‘Do Not Disturb.’ This can be set for a specific amount of time based on what you might be doing while Discord is open!
Streaming
This status tells users when you are streaming a game on Twitch, and you can only set this status when your Twitch account is linked to your Discord and the streamer mode is enabled.
When this mode is enabled, it will be able to automatically tell when you are streaming a game and automatically display this status.
Offline
This is a status that Discord automatically displays when you’re offline, and is the default status for when you’re yet to open the Discord app.
Invisible
This status has a lot in common with ‘Offline,’ but unlike ‘Offline’ you are able to manually set this status.
This status tells users that you’re offline, even when you’re still logged in to Discord or have it open. But when you’re ‘Invisible’ you’ll still be able to respond to messages.
Do Not Disturb
This status indicates to other users that you’re not able to chat with them, and so you shouldn’t be disturbed.
This status is a red circle next to your avatar, and also automatically mutes all your notifications from Discord. This is a status that has to be manually set, so this indicates to users that you are busy and shouldn’t be disturbed.
How To Change Your Status To ‘Idle’ Manually On Discord
As we’ve previously mentioned, Discord automatically sets your status depending on how it perceives you interacting with the app. ‘Idle’ is also an automatic status that Discord sets for you when you haven’t opened the server for some time.
But you can change your status to Idle by yourself to let people know that you are AFK. But how do you do this on your desktop? Let’s go through the steps.
Step 1: Open the server where you would like to be seen as ‘Idle.’
Step 2: Click your profile picture found in the bottom-left corner of your screen.
Step 3: Select ‘Idle.’
There you have it! You have now changed your status to ‘Idle’ and you should see a yellow crescent moon icon next to your profile picture in the right sidebar, and other users will be able to see this too.
How To Set Your Status To ‘Idle’ On Discord On Your Mobile
You can also set an ‘Idle’ status within the Discord mobile app available on iPhone, iPad, or Android.
Step 1: Open your Discord app and tap the Hamburger menu (the menu with three vertical lines). You should see this in the top-left corner of the screen.
Step 2: On the screen that comes up, tap your user profile icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Step 3: This will take you into the User Settings menu. Tap ‘Set Status’ at the top.
Step 4: Lastly, tap ‘Idle’ at the bottom of the screen.
There, your status is now ‘Idle!’ If you want to change your status later, just follow the above steps and tap the status of your choice.
Final Thoughts
Keeping your status updated is important for letting other users know if you can respond to their messages or if you’re busy with other things.
What makes Discord so unique is its multiple customization options, and setting your status to ‘Idle’ is one of them!
Hi, I’m Matt Johnson, and I work as a Digital Marketer. I started out as a PR assistant for a publishing company, and I quickly learned how important digital platforms are for marketing in the modern world.
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