How to Add Reaction Roles on Discord

Roles make a Discord server more engaging and fun. It gives users their distinctive color, allows them to express their preferences and favorites, and more.

But most importantly, roles allow you to manage permissions you hand out to each user. You will decide who to trust with managing webhooks, adding and removing emojis to the server, who can view the audit log, and a lot more other cool stuff.

However, if you have a large number of members, assigning roles can be a bit of a problem. That is, unless, you do something to automate most of the roles and manually assign the truly important ones (like managers and staff).

What are Discord Reaction Roles?

Simply put, adding reaction roles on Discord allows server members to assign themselves just by clicking or tapping an emoji associated with that role. Upon choosing a reaction role, the member gets a role assigned to them.

Depending on the server settings, the color of your username may also change in accordance with the role you chose. Other members will be able to see it once they click on your name on the member’s sidebar as a part of your profile on that server.

Assigning yourself to a reaction role also changes some of the server features and privileges you enjoy, including the ability to send images on a channel. Some even use reaction roles to give people the freedom to choose channels they would like to be included, and channels they don’t want to see. For example, on a gaming server, people can choose to assign roles to themselves that allow them to either view channels related to PS5 games or PC games.

The good news is, you can add reaction roles both from your desktop and mobile device using a Discord bot. Below you can find three of the best Discord bots you can use to assign multiple roles. Let’s dive in.

Before everything else, make sure you are either the owner of the server or have permission to manage roles. If you don’t have the ability to manage server roles, you can’t do anything from here on beyond. You can ask the owner of the server or apply as one of the server managers to get permission.

Once you have access and all the necessary permissions, follow the steps below to add reaction roles on the server.

Adding Roles to the Server

First, you need to establish new roles for your server. To do that, simply follow these steps:

1. Step 1

   Open Discord, and log in to your Discord account if you haven’t already.

2. Step 2

   Choose a server. Then, click the server name on the top left side of the screen. Select Server Settings.

   

3. Step 3

   Go to Roles tab. Click Create Roles.

   

4. Step 4

   Create any role you like to add to your server. For this guide, let’s say we’re making an RPG server and we’ll allow members to assign a class to themselves:

   

   You can change the color of each role. It will also affect the color of the member’s username.

   Add as many roles as you want. You can add up to 250 roles. Keep in mind though that it might be hard to manage these roles in the future as well as make them different from one another.

   

   Examples of roles you can add are:

   • Gender and preferred pronouns
   • Age Range
   • Location

   Don’t forget to click Save changes.

Invite a Bot to Your Server

Now that you’ve set roles for your server, the next step you need to do is invite a bot to your server. Top.gg is one of the best places online to find bots and servers.

Here are three of the most used Discord bots that allow you to add reaction roles:

1. Carl-bot
2. Zira
3. ProBot

Invite one of these bots to your Discord server so you can start creating reaction roles. To invite a bot, do the following:

1. Step 1

   Go to Top.gg and choose a bot. For this guide, we will use Carl-bot.

   

2. Step 2

   Select the server you want to add reaction roles to and click continue.

3. Step 3

   Click Authorize to give Carl-bot all the needed permissions.

4. Step 4

   Check the Captcha verification to continue.

You will see a notification that the bot has been authorized. After that, the bot will also slide into your server and you can start using it.

Before that, make sure you placed the bot on the top of the roles list so that it can manage roles efficiently. You can do that by going to Server Settings > Roles. Drag Carl-bot (or any other reaction poll bot you’re using) up so it’s placed above all the other roles. Click Save Changes.

Adding Reaction Roles

Most of the reaction roles bots are everywhere (meaning they can be in any channel) so you can type in the command anywhere, as long as it’s a text channel, of course. However, to make things more organized for you and your members, you can create different channels for roles.

For this tutorial, let’s add two new channels to our test server: #get-your-roles-here and #administrators-only. It’s a good idea to set up a different channel where people can select their roles upon joining your server. As for #administrators-only, this is where we type in commands and such. Put it in private but make sure you’ve added the bots as well as the people you give permission to handle mod tasks to this channel.

Now, there are three Discord bots mentioned above that you can use to create reaction roles. Here’s a brief guide for each of them:

Carl-bot

Carl-bot has a lot of other functions than just adding reaction roles. It’s one of the easiest bots to use when creating reaction roles, too. To add reaction roles to your server using Carl-bot, follow the steps below:

1. Step 1

   Type ?reactionrole make on the text box of any channel.

   

2. Step 2

   Carl-bot will ask you what channel would you like the message to be in. Reply with the channel name. In this case, we’ll use #get-your-roles-here.

   

3. Step 3

   Put in the title and the description separated by a | sign. For example:

   React with the corresponding emoji to get your role |

   :crossed_swords: Swordsman

   :bow_and_arrow: Hunter

   :cross: Cleric

   

4. Step 4

   Next step, reply with the hex color of the message. To get a hex color, you can use this website. To skip, reply with “none”.

   

5. Step 5

   Now, you will have to assign emojis to each role. Type inside the text box the emoji and tag the corresponding role for each. The format is going to be like this:

   :emoji: @role_name

   For example:

   :crossed_swords: @Swordsman

   :bow_and_arrow: @Hunter

   :cross: @Cleric

   Click send.

6. Step 6

   Carl-bot will react to your message with a checkmark. Respond with “DONE” and you’re all set!

   

When you go to the roles channel, you will see that the message has been posted:

Zira

With Zira, you will also have to use commands to add reaction roles. To add one, just follow the steps below:

1. Step 1

   Write a message on the channel indicating reaction roles. You can set your message into something like this:

   

2. Step 2

   Right-click on the message to get the message ID. You will need this later.

   

   Note: If you can’t see the option to Copy ID, go to User Settings > Advanced > Enable Developer Mode. Go back to the message and see if you can find Copy ID in the options. If you do, click that and proceed to the next step.

3. Step 3

   Go to the channel where you’ve typed in the commands. Type z/channel and include the channel you want to set up the reaction roles.

   

4. Step 4

   Once the channel is set, type in z/message plus the ID message of the one you sent in earlier. Press enter.

   

5. Step 5

   Type in the command z/normal :emoji: @role. Send a message for each of the roles until you’ve assigned emojis to all of them.

   

   Note: There are other commands you can use on Zira. For the full guide, visit their website.

6. Step 6

   Go to the channel where you sent the message. Zira has reacted to your message earlier, and when a user joins your server, they can now select a role they want.

   

ProBot

ProBot is a bit different from the other two, mainly because you are going to add reaction roles on their website’s dashboard and not through using commands.

1. Step 1

   Go to your ProBot dashboard, and log in if you haven’t already.

2. Step 2

   Click Embed Messages, then choose Compose. Select New Embed.

   

3. Step 3

   Click Title and Description as elements for your embed. Write the title and then add the roles in the description. After that, click Save Changes.

   

4. Step 4

   Then, click Send New Message and choose the channel you want to send it to.

   

   The message has now been sent to the channel.

   

5. Step 5

   Now, you need to add reactions so users can assign their own roles. To do that, go to the left sidebar and select Reaction Roles. Then, click Add Message.

6. Step 6

   Under Embeds, select Roles.

7. Step 7

   Under Choose a Message, select the most recent one you sent. This is the Embed Message you’ve created earlier.

   

8. Step 8

   Add reactions and assign them to each role until everything is filled out. Make sure to save your changes.

   

And there you go! ProBot has sent a message to your server that has self-assignable roles.

Adding reaction roles from mobile is similar to doing them from your desktop, except that you will be using two applications: the Discord app and your phone’s browser (or any browser you want). You can use the guide above to invite a bot and add reaction roles to your server.

For mobile use, we’re going to use Carl-bot as an example as it’s the easiest one so far when it comes to adding reaction roles on your phone.

1. Step 1

   Launch your phone’s browser and invite Carl-bot through the Top.gg website.

2. Step 2

   Once Carl-bot is in your server, open the Discord app on your phone.

   Type ?reactionrole make on the text box of any channel. You can also do the same settings above made for desktop where we added two channels: #get-your-roles-here and #administrators-only.

   In this case, you can type ?reactionrole make on the channel #administrators-only.

3. Step 3

   After that, Carl-bot will ask you what channel would you like the message to be in. Reply with the channel name. In this case, we’ll use #get-your-roles-here.

4. Step 4

   Type in the title and the description separated by a | sign. For example:

   React with the corresponding emoji to get your role |

   :crossed_swords: Swordsman

   :bow_and_arrow: Hunter

   :cross: Cleric

5. Step 5

   Next step, reply with the hex color of the message. To get a hex color, you can use this website. To skip, reply with “none”.

6. Step 6

   Now, you will have to assign emojis to each role. Type inside the text box the emoji and tag the corresponding role for each. The format is going to be like this:

   :emoji: @role_name

   For example:

   :crossed_swords: @Swordsman

   :bow_and_arrow: @Hunter

   :cross: @Cleric

   Click send.

7. Step 7

   Carl-bot will react to your message with a checkmark. Reply with “DONE”.

Reaction roles are pretty much an important addition to your server, especially if you want to keep things fun for everyone and organized. You can use reaction roles for the following:

• It allows members to assign their own roles
• Members can choose which channels will be available to them
• You can set reaction roles as a way to let members choose if they want to receive notifications or not
• Member usernames will have different colors depending on their roles, and this can help them stand out from others
• Users can express their preferences and favorites
• It can help you group your members accordingly, such as their gender and age
• Reaction roles help you delegate tasks and permission to others without manually adding them yourself