Server Roles: Mobile Guide

Creating a New Role

To start, you must own or have permissions in a Discord server to create a new role.

To create your own Discord server, click the '+' icon in the server list, and select 'Create My Own'.

Next, you'll need to head on over to your server's settings to edit the roles. To do this, go into the server you wish to edit, where you can see the list of channels. Tap the server name, and click "Settings". Afterwards, scroll down to "Server Management", and select "Roles".

Once you've selected to edit your server's roles, you'll be met with this page:

To create a new role, click the + icon in the top right corner.

Step 1: Role's Name & Colour

Here, you can edit the role's name and colour.

  • The Role's Name may appear in the user list, as shown below. However, this only works if the option 'Display role members separately from online members' is toggled on, and if the role is the user's highest (see Managing Positions).

  • The Role Colour will be used to give users colour. Likewise with the role's name, if this role is the highest on the user, that colour will be used. In the example below, I have selected a blue, and for most users, the role will appear as shown: (Some users will view the role colour differently, depending on their settings.)

Step 2: Setting the Role's Permissions

Automatically, each role you create will have no permissions. Once you add permissions, any user who has this role will be able to perform any action you grant them, such as "Create Invite".

No matter the position of the role (highest, or the lowest), this role will still grant the permissions you have selected. However, channel overwrites will affect your role's permissions (unless you've chosen the 'administrator' permission).

Channel Overwrites are unique permissions you can set per category or channel. See Categories & Channels

Editing & Accessing More Permissions

When creating a new role, you'll be given four set choices of permissions. However, there are more specific options you can toggle.

Head back to the Server Roles page, and select a role. Next, select "Permissions". Here you will have a list of unique permissions you can select.

The administrator permission will allow users' with the role to have every permission, including: accessing every channel, banning users, editing all server settings and more.

This is a dangerous permission to grant.

Step 3: Manage Members

This tab shows all of your server's members, with a checkbox you can select to add your newly-created role to that user's profile.

You can edit the roles that a user has later-on.

Editing Existing Roles

Once you have created some roles, you will be able to modify them. On mobile, you will have greater access to a role's settings by modifying them; settings that were not available to you when creating the role.

Head over to your Server Settings > Roles tab, and select a role you'd like to edit. You will then see the following page:

Here, you can access more options; specific permissions to toggle; and linked roles. Additionally, this page is how you can delete a role.

Linked Roles: what are they?

Links allow your roles to have connections to other playforms, such as Twitch, YouTube and Steam.

With a linked role, you can add multiple connections with their own requirements - such as having a Twitter account that is at least 10 days old, and at least 10,000 followers.

When creating a linked role, these roles will be given to users automatically once they meet your role's requirements. Therefore, I'd advise to have low permissions for these roles to keep the server safe.

Managing Positions

Role Positions: what are they?

Discord roles each have their own position. The following usually determines how positions are set:

  • Roles with higher positions will often hold more permissions and be roles for admins or moderators.

  • Roles with low permissions, or are roles purely for decoraction or utility (such as a "Ping for Announcements" role) should have lower positions.

Using BotWiz as an example, the following is an example of how positions affect how roles work:

As shown, "Bacio's Team" is at the top of the user list, meaning it has a higher position than "Management Team", "BotWiz", "Moderation Team" and "Partner".

Role Position Permissions

When moderating a user on Discord, for example, the moderator must have a role higher than the user they're moderating. Otherwise, they are attempting to moderate a user that, in theory, has greater permissions than the moderator.

Say for example, I Catnip, try to moderate Ducky. This will not work as Ducky has a role above my highest role. I am unable to timeout, kick or ban Ducky as they have a greater role, and greater role permissions than me.

Therefore, it's important to keep your roles in order, such as the image below.

How to Edit a Role's Position

Head over to your Server Settings > Roles page, and click 'Reorder'. This will open a new page, as shown below. By using the 6-dotted icon on the left of each role, you can click and drag the role selected to a new position.

You can also use this page to delete multiple roles quickly.

On mobile, you can not edit a role's icon. This is only available on Discord's Desktop version.

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