How to Change Discord Playing Status?‍

Discord is a messaging app that’s now grown into the go-to communication tool for gamers across the world. Discord can do a lot more than just send a plain text or a voice message, and it offers a host of great features that’s well-suited to gaming - like custom servers, voice channels, and lots of integrations.

A core feature of Discord is that it offers users a host of different ways to personalise their experience. Be it nicknames, usernames, emotes, background, and text formatting. Discord also supports a wide variety of bots - and even offers developers the ability to play around and create their own versions of the main app.

As a result, the possibilities are endless, and gamers and more casual users love the extensive customisation options. To help users tailor their experience even further, Discord introduced the ability to set custom statuses in the app.

So by default, Discord automatically identifies the game that you’re currently playing and displays it as your status. However, you can change it to any status you want.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Tl; dr: How to change Discord playing status
2. How to add Discord game status
3. How to remove Playing status in Discord
4. How to change Discord playing status by setting a custom status
5. FAQs

Tl; dr: Discord ‘Playing’ status

To stop displaying the Discord ‘Playing’ status,

1. Go to ‘User Settings’ > ‘Activity Status’
2. De-select ‘Display current activity as status message’ by toggling it off

How to add Discord game status

As mentioned, Discord automatically detects which game you’re running, and if it is a verified game, displays it in your status as “Playing…”. For instance, if you’re playing Fifa 21, Discord will detect that Fifa21.exe is running and hence will automatically change your status message to “Playing Fifa 21”.

If you’re playing an unverified game, Discord won’t automatically recognise it. So, you’ll have to manually set your status on Discord by adding the game. Here’s how to do it:

• Step 1. Click on ‘User Settings’




• Step 2. Scroll down to ‘Activity Status’ in the left sidebar and select it
• Step 3. Click on ‘Add it!’




• Step 4. Select the game that you’re playing (Discord will show you all open applications)





That’s it, you can now see that there’s a ‘Now Playing!’ indicator just below the title name.






If you exit the Discord settings, you can now see that your current status has been changed to ‘Playing…”

How to remove Playing status in Discord

If for whatever reason you don’t want your mates or other users to know which game you’re currently playing, you can choose not to display the Discord ‘Playing’ status. Here’s how to do it:

• Step 1. Go to ‘User Settings’ > ‘Activity Status’ as described above
• Step 2. De-select ‘Display current activity as status message’ by toggling it off





That’s it, Discord will no longer display the playing status to other users.

You can also choose to display some other application instead if you don’t want to let users know what game you’re playing. For instance, just select ‘Google Chrome’ or ‘Notepad’ or something else in this drop-down:






This is how it’ll show up as your status:

How to set a custom status in Discord

Discord also allows you to display a custom status message instead of the default ‘Playing’ status. Here’s how you do it:

Discord also lets you set a custom status where you can customise your visible status message, for each of the four standard status types.

• Step 1. Click on your avatar and select ‘Set a custom status’




• Step 2. In the pop-up dialog box, enter your custom status message, and select the desired ‘Clear after’ parameter to let Discord know when to stop displaying your message





For instance, if you set it for 4 hours, Discord will stop displaying this custom status message after 4 hours.

You can also choose an emoticon to go along with your status message to give it a visual touch.





• Step 3. After typing in your custom status message, click on ‘Save’ to set the status





That’s it, you can now see that your status has been changed.

If you no longer want to display the custom status message, just click on your avatar again, and click on the cross icon next to your status to remove it.

If you’d rather want to appear offline on Discord - check out our guide on how to do so.

FAQs

How to change Discord playing status on mobile?

While there is no playing status on the Discord mobile app, Discord allows you to display your current activity - only if you’re attending a public Stage - as your status message.

Here’s how to enable it:

• Step 1. Tap on the three horizontal bars at the top-left corner (or swipe left)
• Step 2. Tap on your avatar at the bottom-right corner to open up User Settings




• Step 3. Scroll down to Activity Status and tap on it
• Step 4. Enable the ‘Display current activity as status message’ by toggling it on

How to set custom status on Discord mobile?

You can set a custom status on the Discord iOS or Android app just like you can on the desktop and web versions. Here’s how to do it:

• Step 1. In the User Settings screen, tap on ‘Set Status’
• Step 2. Go to ‘Set a custom status’




• Step 3. Type in your status message, select the desired time period for clearing the status, choose an emoji if you like, and press the Save button (floppy disk icon)