Can Discord See Deleted Messages?

Although you can delete your sent messages, you may have some lingering questions in your mind: can someone see the deleted messages on Discord? Can the other person or can server admins retrieve them?

Deleted messages on Discord can be hard to retrieve, but this article will help you do just that and more.

In a private direct message, if the sender deletes a message, you can no longer see it. In other words, as the receiver, you can no longer view nor report deleted messages. The official Discord Twitter account confirmed this in 2018 in a tweet saying a Discord message is “gone for good” once it’s deleted.

Discord’s servers can be filled with abusive users. While there’s no official way to see deleted messages in servers, you can use bots or plug-ins instead of relying on immediate screenshots to manage or moderate your Discord servers efficiently. They customize your server so that when a user deletes their message, the bot logs it and helps you see deleted messages.

Using Dyno Bot

Dyno Bot is a popular bot used by many servers because of its flexible and helpful Action Log. When you use Dyno bot’s action log events, it helps you view deleted messages by logging them immediately upon deletion.

Here’s how you can use Dyno bot for your server:

1. Step 1

   Go to Dyno Bot’s website.

2. Step 2

   

   Click the “Add to Server” button on the top right corner.

3. Step 3

   Enter your Discord login details.

4. Step 4

   

   Click “Select a server” to choose the server where you want to install the Dyno bot in.

5. Step 5

   Click “Authorize” and type the captcha.

To use Dyno bot’s Action Log feature and view the server’s deleted messages, set up your Dyno Bot by doing the following steps:

1. Step 1

   

   Go to Dyno Bot’s homepage and select Manage Servers.

2. Step 2

   Select the server where you installed Dyno.

3. Step 3

   Select Modules in the sidebar.

4. Step 4

   

   Look for the Action Log box in the menu and switch it on.

5. Step 5

   

   Click the arrow pointing down beside Modules in the sidebar. When the drop-down menu appears, click Action Log.

6. Step 6

   

   In the Log Channel tab, enter the channel where you want to see Dyno bot’s updates and log events. Then, under Events tab, click Message Deleted to enable logging events related to deleted messages.

7. Step 7

   

   To test if you’ve successfully enabled Dyno bot’s action log, you can send a message to your server and delete it immediately. Dyno bot will prompt you inside the #audits-log channel showing the deleted message and its details.

While Dyno bot is a great tool to recover deleted messages on Discord, the abilities of its Action Log feature greatly depend on whether you have the free version or the premium version. In the free version, Dyno will only store deleted messages in the last 10 messages per channel.

So, if you delete the 11th message or any message above that, Dyno will not show it in the message deletion log. On the other hand, in the premium version, Dyno can store the last 100 messages per channel. Therefore, if you’re using the free version, you have to be quicker in accessing the logs since you’ll easily lose the deleted message if many other server members chat in the same channel.

Using Logger Bot

Logger Bot is a smaller and more lightweight alternative to Dyno bot. It’s for free and more simple as it only logs deleted messages, edited messages, and members who join or leave a discord server. It can store the log events up to two weeks, which would be enough for most owners who own a small Discord server or who can’t always monitor their servers.

Here’s how you can integrate it to see deleted messages on Discord:

1. Step 1

   

   Go to Logger Bot‘s website and select the Invite button in the upper right corner.

2. Step 2

   Enter your login details and the captcha.

3. Step 3

   

   Click Select a Server to choose which server you want the Logger bot to monitor.

4. Step 4

   

   Click Authorize and enter the captcha.

5. Step 5

   

   The Logger bot is now in the server you’ve chosen. To configure it, go back to the main page of Logger Bot‘s website and click the Server Selector image or the large image under “Welcome to the dashboard!” greeting.

6. Step 6

   

   Click Authorize to allow Logger bot access to your Discord account.

7. Step 7

   Now that you’re logged in, you will be led back to the main page. Click the server selector image again to configure the server settings.

8. Step 8

   Click the server you want to configure.

9. Step 9

   Under the Channels To Log To tab on the left side, you can select the channel where you want to see the log events you want to be updated with. When you’re done, make sure you click the Submit button at the most bottom part to save the settings.

10. Step 10

    

    Under the Modules tab on the right side you can check or uncheck what events you want to monitor. Hovering over them will show you more information about what they do. If you want to focus on retrieving messages, you can uncheck everything and just check messageDelete. Again, make sure to click the Submit button to confirm your settings.

11. Step 11

    Go to your Discord server and set the amount of messages you want to archive in a channel. For example, if you want to archive 500 messages, type and send %archive 500 in the channel where you plan to store messages. For the free version, you can keep up to 1000 messages. If you support them on Patreon, you can store up to 10,000 messages and keep them for 14 days.

    

    After setting the number of messages you want to archive, you can now test the Logger bot. If you send then delete a message, the Logger bot will show you a prompt in the channel you set under Step 11 containing details of the message.

Using Better Discord with MessageLoggerV2 Plug-in

If you can’t try the previous two methods because you’re not a server owner but still want to try retrieving deleted messages, you can use MessageLoggerV2 Plug-in. This is helpful for server members who witness abusive behavior or harmful content and want to report them. While it is technically against Discord’s terms and conditions, your account will not be suspended by using this action.

To view deleted messages in a server with Better Discord and MessageLoggerV2 Plug-in, follow these steps:

1. Step 1

   

   Download the latest version of the app in the BetterDiscord website.

2. Step 2

   Open the downloaded file, and install the app.

3. Step 3

   

   Select Discord and then Install.

4. Step 4

   Once the installation is complete, close the Discord app if it is currently open to restart it.

Now, you can now install the MessageLoggerV2 plug-in by following these steps:

1. Step 1

   Install the MessageLoggerV2 plug-in.

2. Step 2

   Click the Download button.

3. Step 3

   Ignore the Windows warning and click Keep to download the file.

You must now install and activate the plug-in within the Better Discord app. To add and activate the MessageLoggerV2 plug-in in the Better Discord app, follow these steps:

1. Step 1

   

   Go to the MessageLoggerV2 website. Click download and install the file.

2. Step 2

   Open your Discord app then select the Settings icon.

3. Step 3

   

   Check the settings sidebar under the BetterDiscord settings, select Plug-ins and click Open Plugins Folder.

4. Step 4

   Open the folder containing the MessageLoggerV2 plugin file, then drag and drop it to BetterDiscord’s Plugins folder. The plugin should now show in the Discord App.

5. Step 5

   

   Enable the MessageLoggerV2 plugin by activating the plugin switch.

6. Step 6

   When prompted with a Missing Libraries window, click the Download Now button to download the needed plugins.

7. Step 7

   After completing the download, enable the XenoLib and ZeresPluginLibrary plugins.

8. Step 8

   

   To view deleted Discord messages, go to the server where they are contained. Right-click the server’s name, hover Message logger at the bottom, then click Open Logs.

   

   It will now show you details of a deleted Discord message.

You might be wondering if the Discord team can retrieve deleted messages on Discord just like server owners and members. The answer is no, the Discord team itself cannot see them. Aside from the privacy agreement, the developers built Discord based on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol, which prevents them from accessing and viewing their users’ messages. In other words, Discord users can freely exchange messages and delete them without worrying about whether Discord developers can see them since they can’t see them on their end.

Report Abusive Comments on Discord

If you’re looking into how to view deleted messages, one of your reasons must be to report an abusive message. Most people wanting to track and capture a deleted message want to hold the sender accountable. When you see an abusive message that hasn’t been deleted yet, you can report it to Discord’s support team.

To report abusive users in your Discord mobile app, simply locate the message you wish to report, then tap and hold the message until a pop-up menu appears. From there, you can tap Report at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

If you’re on a desktop, the process is different because unlike the mobile app, the desktop app has no “Report” button. Instead, you will need to do the following steps:

1. Step 1

   Access user settings in the Discord app.

2. Step 2

   

   Select the “Advanced” option in the sidebar and enable the “Developer Mode.“

3. Step 3

   

   Locate the message you want to report, right-click on the sender’s username, and choose “Copy ID.” Paste the user ID in a text document and label it so, since you will have to copy other IDs aside from this one in the following steps .

4. Step 4

   

   To copy the message ID, right-click anywhere on the message you want to report, then click “Copy ID,” and paste and label the message ID into the same text document.

5. Step 5

   

   Get the server ID where the violation happened by right-clicking on the server name, then click “Copy ID,” and paste and label it in the same document where the user ID and message ID are. Ensure that all three IDs are labeled correctly (User ID, Message ID, Server ID).

6. Step 6

   

   Go to the official Discord request form. For the first question, click the field to open the drop-down menu and choose “Trust & Safety“. Fill up the rest of the form after providing your email address in the designated field.

7. Step 7

   Copy and paste all three IDs into the “Description” box and add any notes or details of the incident you would like to share. You can also attach a screenshot in the “Attachment” field.

8. Step 8

   After you have filled out the form, check the reCAPTCHA box at the bottom, and click “Submit.”

   Upon submission, your request will be sent to the Discord support team. You will receive updates about the report through the email you provided.