There is no doubt that Discord takes the top spot for many gamers when it comes to voice chat in gaming.
Some users may find this feature distracting, as the Discord overlay may get in the way of important information in your games, and you will want to disable the Discord overlay to free up room on your screen.
This guide will cover the different ways to disable Discord overlay in your games.
Disable Discord Overlay on All the Games
To completely disable discord overlay in every game:
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Step 1
Click on the User Settings icon (gear wheel).
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Step 2
Scroll down the left side to Game Overlay (under activity settings).
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Step 3
At the top, click the slider next to Enable in-game overlay from green to gray.
You will now no longer see the Discord overlay in any game you play.
Disable Discord Overlay on Specific Games
Maybe you only want to disable Discord overlay in some particular games you play, but not in others.
To disable Discord overlay in a specific game:
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STEP 1
Click on the User Settings icon (gear wheel).
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STEP 2
Scroll down the left side to Registered Games (under activity settings).
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STEP 3
On the games list to the right, find the game you want to turn off the Discord overlay for.
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step 4
Click the screen icon on the right from gray to red.
You have now turned the overlay off in that game. Repeat for any other specific games you want to turn on or off.
Disabling Text Chats While Keeping Overlay
If you want to only show users in the voice calls you are in, but not text chat messages:
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Step 1
Open the User Settings (gear icon) menu and scroll to the Game Overlay tab.
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Step 2
Make sure the Discord overlay is turned on.
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Step 3
Scroll to the bottom and click the slider to the right of Show Text Chat Notifications. Scroll to the bottom and click the slider to the right of Show Text Chat Notifications.
You have now turned off notifications via the text chat notifications toggle.
Discord Overlay Customization
Aside from turning the Discord overlay on or off, there are a few customization options to choose from.
In the Game Overlay section, you can choose users’ icon size and when users will appear on the overlay.
You can also choose which corner of your screen the text overlay notifications will show up.
Even after customizing your overlay to your needs, sometimes you will want to hide the Discord overlay in the middle of a game.
It can be hard to switch to Discord, open settings, and make changes in the middle of playing. The overlay lock function can be set to a key bind that will turn the overlay feature on or off.
To do this go to User Settings (gear icon) > Game Overlay. Under Toggle Overlay Lock, press the key bind you want to use as the Discord shortcut to turn off Discord overlay.
You now have a personalized overlay lock shortcut to use on the fly in all your games.
Each overlay option is individual and really customizes how your Discord overlay looks.
How to Fix Discord Overlay Not Working
Sometimes the Discord Overlay will be disabled even though Enable in-game overlay is selected.
While most of the time, simply turning it off and on again will fix the issue, sometimes, to enable Discord overlay again, you have to take some more in-depth steps.
Run Discord as Administrator
To activate the in-game overlay, Discord needs to have permission to do this. Your computer may sometimes temporarily revoke these permissions and disable the Discord overlay.
Running Discord as an administrator can sometimes fix this issue.
To run Discord as administrator:
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Step 1
Close Discord on your computer.
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Step 2
Right-click the Discord icon on your desktop.
Select “Run as Administrator.”
If you utilize this method, you’ll have to do it every time you change Discord’s settings. If you want Discord to always launch as an Administrator, you must do the following:
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Step 1
Close Discord on your computer.
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Step 2
Right-click the Discord icon on your desktop.
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Step 3
Select Run as Administrator.
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Step 4
Select Yes in the pop-up window to allow Discord to change your device.
Discord will now launch with administrator privileges, allowing Discord to enable in-game overlay.
Disable Hardware Acceleration in Discord
Discord can load a lot of information if you are in a high number of communities. To do this, Discord uses your device’s GPU (graphics processing unit) to help.
If your GPU is being overloaded by this, your device may end up disabling Discord overlay to reduce the amount of work it needs to do when running a game.
To fix this issue, you can Disable hardware acceleration in Discord.
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Step 1
Open Discord and click the User settings icon.
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Step 2
Scroll down to Advanced in the App settings section.
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Step 3
Click the slider next to Hardware acceleration to turn it off.
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Step 4
In the pop-up window, select Okay to restart Discord.
Add Discord to Your Third-Party Antivirus Application’s Whitelist
Discord needs permission from your device to take certain actions, one of which is displaying an overlay in a particular game.
Antivirus software often blocks actions like these from apps, as they see the app as a potentially harmful program.
To fix this, you will need to put Discord on the antivirus software’s whitelist. This will allow Discord to change other programs, like putting an in-game overlay into your favorite game.
Check for Any Software Interruptions
A computer device is a pretty complex machine. Many processes are happening all the time from many different sources. Sometimes these processes can interact in a way that will disable your Discord in-game overlay.
Finding the exact cause of this can be difficult to figure out.
The best way to remedy a software interruption by disabling Discord overlay is to turn off your device, unplug all USB connections and turn it back on.
If this does not fix the issue, a deeper problem may be solved by updating your device or other software.
Reinstall Discord
If everything else you have tried fails, the final option is to simply reinstall Discord.
To do this, you will need to completely exit out of Discord.
Open your device’s program manager and uninstall Discord from the list.
Next, go to discord.com and select Download on the homepage.