BetterDiscord: What It Is And (How To Set It Up)

In the eight-plus years since its launch, group chat app Discord has taken over that segment of the market. A mix of IRC, video streaming platforms, and voice chat apps, it started as part of the gaming community before expanding out into other areas. If you're a content creator with a Patreon page and want a Patron-exclusive chat server, Discord is the only one that seamlessly integrates with Patreon. And it makes it so you don't have to manually add everyone like you would on workplace-centric chat apps like Slack. That's just one of Discord's best features.

Discord's developers haven't taken care of everything that its users want, though. To fill that void, Zack Rauen and a team of volunteer developers launched BetterDiscord in 2015 as a modification of the app that allows for greater customization like themes, additional plugins, a minimal mode, and more.

Some of its features have since been adopted in mainline Discord, but not all, and BetterDiscord tends to stay ahead of the curve. Using it is technically against Discord's terms of service, but the BetterDiscord FAQ page says it's unlikely to cause any trouble for the end user unless they use it to run disallowed Discord bots and plugins. If that sounds intriguing, read on to learn how to set up BetterDiscord.

With the caveats that BetterDiscord can only be used with the desktop versions of the Discord app (Windows, macOS, and Linux) and not the mobile versions, as well as that you already need to have the main Discord app installed, here's how to set it up:

1. Download the installer from BetterDiscord.app and run it.
2. Check the box next to "I accept the license agreement." and click Next.
3. Click "Install BetterDiscord" on the "Choose an Action" menu and then click Next.
4. Click Install.

When the installation process is complete, Discord will restart, and you'll see that a slew of new settings are available to you. That's it! If you want to browse themes and plugins that you can add now that you've installed BetterDiscord, those options will be available under the User Settings menu. You can access it via the gear icon next to the microphone and headphone icons in the lower-left corner of the app.

[Featured image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr | Cropped | CC BY-SA 2.0]