how to delete multiple messages on discord

Discord is a great app for communicating with your friends and creating a tight-knit community, but managing your own Discord server isn't always a cakewalk.

How To Delete All Messages in Discord

Managing old messages is one of the administrative headaches of running an active Discord server, particularly when you need to delete negative or otherwise unacceptable messages.

Depending on the size of your Discord server, your text chat can become filled with thousands of messages. Whether you want to delete all messages to get rid of inappropriate ones or just want to wipe the slate clean, it's important to know the easiest way to do it.

In this article, I will show you how to manage your Discord server's message backlog, including how to get rid of all your messages.

How to Delete All Discord Messages

Discord has two distinct types of text messages: Direct Messages, which are private conversations between two users, and channel messages, which are text chat shared within the entire group on a particular channel.

Each type of message works in different ways and has different rules. When Discord was first released, administrators could delete messages in bulk within the native UI of the app. This caused database problems because too many admins were mass-deleting messages at the same time.

As a result, bulk-deletion functionality was removed from the native UI. While it may not be as easy as it was before, it is still possible to delete all of your Discord server's messages.

How to Delete Direct Messages in Discord

To delete a Direct Message in Discord, you can close the chat panel or erase the specific message so that it disappears from your history.

Here's how to erase direct messages:

Right-click on the user you've exchanged Direct Messages with and select Message.
In the Direct Message panel on the left side of the screen, hover over the conversation and click the X that appears.

Note that there is no confirmation dialog, so don't go clicking the X on conversations you might want to keep.

If you just want to hide a few Direct Message conversations, that's all there is to it. If you need to delete channel messages, continue reading to see how to do so.

How to Delete Channel Messages in Discord

Unlike Direct Messages, channel messages can be deleted using a few different methods.

Here are three ways to delete channel messages in Discord.

Method #1: Manual Deletion

Follow these steps to manually delete all channel messages:

Open the text channel that has the message you want to delete.
Hover over the message until the three-dot icon appears on the far right. Click on the icon, then select Delete from the menu.
A window will open asking you to confirm your selection. Click the Delete button.

This works fine if you just have a few problematic messages to get rid of, but it is obviously not suitable for removing large quantities of text messages.

If you need to delete bulk messages, you'll have to use one of the following methods below.

Method #2: Use a Discord Bot

There are a lot of bots to choose from that feature a bulk-delete option. However, the MEE6 bot is the current favorite amongst server admins.

Installing the MEE6 bot is relatively simple. Log into your Discord server and follow these steps:

Navigate to the MEE6 website.
Select Add to Discord
Select the appropriate server.
Select Continue in the popup window to link the MEE6 bot to your Discord server
MEE6 will then ask you to grant specific permissions so that it can delete messages. Click the Authorize button.
For user verification, click the box in the captcha window and follow the verification prompts.

Once MEE6 is installed, you can utilize a variety of features from the browser window that pops up, as shown below, or enter commands within Discord Chat to delete messages and more.

To delete messages in your Discord chat app, use the following commands:

Use '!clear @username' to delete a specific user's previous 100 messages.
Use '!clear 500' to delete the last 500 messages on the channel.

You can also change the number to reflect how many messages you want to delete, up to 1,000.

This is by far the easiest method for deleting a large number of messages at once. As a reminder, if the command isn't working for you, travel to the MEE6 website and click on 'Moderator.' Enable this function and the command will work properly.

Method #3: Clone the Channel

If the MEE6 alternative doesn't work for you, the final way to delete all messages is to clone the channel. This process creates a copy of the channel without the channel's old message history.

NOTE: Be sure to make a list of the bots you have on the channel because cloning doesn't always copy them over to the new channel.

Right-click on the channel you want to clone. Select Clone Channel.
Rename the cloned channel if you wish.
Delete the old version. Open the new cloned version and add any bots you require.

Cloning a channel will also add users from the old one, and it will recreate everyone's permissions. This process makes it much easier than creating a new channel from scratch. Now, all the messages in the old channel are gone, and your new channel has the same settings.

Recovering Deleted Messages

If you've accidentally deleted a few messages, or you'd like to recover some for reporting purposes, there are some workarounds for recovering the messages. Messages on Discord are not preserved on the company's servers after deletion. This means you won't have an option to retrieve them through Discord, but there are a few tactics worth trying.

You can use a bot that stores all messages or take screenshots as soon as an inappropriate message appears. Assuming you're trying to report content on a Discord server, you will need proof of that communications to effectively email the support team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Whether you're new to Discord, or you're just trying to figure a few things out, we've added the answers to some more of your questions below!

Will all of my messages disappear if I delete my Discord Account?

No. If you delete your account your messages still remain under a generic 'Deleted User' tag.

Can I delete someone else's messages inside a Discord channel?

Yes, if you are an Admin or the owner of the server you can delete other people's messages.

Can I view deleted messages?

Yes and no. There are Bots that you need to add first, notably Dyno bot as a function to help you u003ca href=u0022https://www.techjunkie.com/see-deleted-messages-discord/u0022u003erecover deleted messagesu003c/au003e.

Can I delete all my messages in a channel?

If you're an admin you can use the instructions we've listed above. If not, you can still try the command to see if it'll work, but more than likely you'll need to delete your messages one-by-one.