Text Formatting

These behave the same as standard Markdown. Wrap your text with the symbols below, flush against the first and last character — a space inside the markers stops it working.

**bold text**

*italic text*

***bold and italic***

~~strikethrough~~

**bold** and *italic* in the same line

Underline

Underline is Discord's own addition — standard Markdown has none. It uses double underscores, __text__, and stacks with bold and italic. This is the one place Discord disagrees with the rest of Markdown, where __text__ means bold.

__underline text__

__**underline bold**__

__*underline italic*__

__***underline bold italic***__

Headers

Discord added headers in 2023. Use #, ##, or ### at the start of a line, with a space before your text. There is no #### — three levels is the limit, and subtext goes the other direction.

# Large Header

## Medium Header

### Small Header

Subtext

Subtext is Discord-exclusive, added in 2024. Start a line with -# and a space for small, greyed text — captions, credits, disclaimers, the line under a screenshot.

Main message text
-# This is subtext below it

Lists

Bullet lists take - or *, numbered lists take 1., and two spaces before the marker nests one level. Checkbox lists are not supported — - [ ] renders the brackets literally.

- First item
- Second item
- Third item

1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step

- Fruits
  - Apple
  - Banana
- Vegetables
  - Carrot

Block Quotes

Start a line with > and a space to quote it. To quote everything from that point to the end of the message, use >>> once at the start. Other formatting still works inside a quote. Discord does not nest quotes, which is where it parts ways with standard Markdown blockquotes.

> This is a single-line blockquote.

> Line one of the quote.
> Line two continues here.

> This line is quoted.
This line is not.

>>> Everything after the triple
angle bracket is quoted.
Even this third line.

Code Blocks

One backtick for inline code, three for a block. Add a language name straight after the opening backticks for syntax highlighting. Code blocks also switch off every other kind of formatting inside them — which is the easiest way to show raw Markdown symbols, and the most common reason someone's bold text refuses to render.

`inline code`

```
Your multi-line code here
No language specified
```

Your multi-line code here
No language specified

```python
def greet(name):
    return f"Hello, {name}!"
```

def greet(name):
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

```javascript
const greet = (name) => `Hello, ${name}!`;
```

const greet = (name) => `Hello, ${name}!`;

Colored Text

Discord has no color syntax for ordinary messages. What it does have is the ansi code block, which renders real ANSI escape sequences — the same ones that color a terminal. This is the current, supported method, and it is the one thing Discord's own formatting article never mentions.

The ansi code block

Open the block with ```ansi, then prefix each run of text with ESC[format;color m and end it with ESC[0m to reset.

Discord swapped this palette out in August 2026 — backgrounds 40-47 changed entirely, and colors now shift with the reader's theme. The Discord color text generator builds the block for you, previews it in all four themes, and puts the real ESC characters on your clipboard.

```ansi
\u001b[1;32mBold green text\u001b[0m
\u001b[0;31mRed text\u001b[0m
\u001b[4;36mUnderlined teal text\u001b[0m
\u001b[1;40;33mBold brown on a black background\u001b[0m
```

The older trick: syntax highlighting as color

Before ANSI, the way to color text was to pick a language whose highlight.js grammar happened to paint the whole line. It is cruder — one color per line, and only the colors the grammar produces — but it needs no invisible characters. The exact shades follow Discord's code-block theme, which it has restyled more than once, so treat the previews as approximate.

```diff
- This line appears red
+ This line appears green
```

```fix
This whole line appears yellow
```

```ini
[This text appears blue]
```

```bash
"This text appears cyan"
```

Spoiler Tags

Double pipes, ||text||, black out the text until someone clicks it. Works mid-sentence, across several lines, and on uploaded files if you tick “Mark as spoiler” (since September 2026 you can also spoiler an image after sending it). Pipes typed inside a code block do nothing, but wrapping the whole block — ||```code```|| — hides it.

||The butler did it!||

The answer is ||42||, of course.

||Line one spoiler
Line two spoiler||

Links and Embeds

Discord auto-links any bare URL and usually generates a preview embed underneath it. Two pieces of syntax change that: masked links hide the URL behind readable text, and angle brackets suppress the preview.

[Visit Google](https://google.com)

<https://example.com/long-article>

Timestamps

Not Markdown, but the most useful formatting Discord has: a Unix timestamp wrapped in <t:...> renders in each reader's own timezone and locale. Nobody has to do the math for “9pm my time”.

Raid starts <t:1735689600:R> — that's <t:1735689600:F>

1735689600 is seconds since the Unix epoch — 1 January 2025, 00:00 UTC — and the right-hand column is what a reader set to English, US sees in UTC. Someone in New York sees the same code as 7:00 PM on 31 December. Leave the style off and Discord uses f. Discord desktop can also build one for you (since early 2026): type @time and describe the moment in plain language.

To get the number for a date, use the timestamp generator — it shows all nine styles at once and converts a Unix timestamp back to a date.

Mentions and Emoji

Typing @ or # in the message box opens an autocomplete, and that is what most people use. The raw forms below matter when you are writing a bot, a webhook payload, or a message you want to build in advance. IDs come from right-clicking and choosing Copy ID, with Developer Mode enabled in Settings.

What Discord Markdown Doesn't Support

Discord implements a subset, not all of Markdown. These are the pieces people reach for and do not find — worth knowing before you spend ten minutes wondering what you typed wrong.

```
Name      Role      Level
--------  --------  -----
Ava       Healer    42
Bjorn     Tank      38
```

Name      Role      Level
--------  --------  -----
Ava       Healer    42
Bjorn     Tank      38

Escaping Characters

Put a backslash \ in front of a formatting character to send it literally. It also stops emoji shortcodes converting — typing \ before a custom emoji is the usual way to reveal its <:name:id> form.

\*\*not bold\*\*

\|\|not a spoiler\|\|

\`not code\`

\> not a quote

Common Mistakes

Almost every “why won't my formatting work” question on Discord is one of these five.

** bold text **

**bold text**

#Header without a space

# Header with a space

__this should be bold__

**this is bold**

```
**bold** inside a code block
```

**bold** outside the code block

```ansi
\u001b[1;32mGreen text\u001b[0m
```

```ansi
(ESC)[1;32mGreen text(ESC)[0m
```

Quick Reference

Every Discord formatting syntax at a glance.

Where Formatting Works

Discord only renders Markdown in message content. Plenty of fields that accept text do not format it, which is the second-most-common reason syntax comes out literal.

Frequently Asked Questions