If you're using a Discord server, you have a wide variety of options to provide cool features to your players. One of these features is the addition of bots. Customizing your server is simple once you learn how to add these bots.
This article will show you how to set up a Discord server, introduce you to the world of bots, and explain how to add bots to your Discord server (and why you might want them).
What are Discord bots?
Bots are simply computer programs that interact with humans (and sometimes other bots) to perform certain functions automatically. A website with a helpful chat window opens immediately offering to talk to you about their product or service; it's a bot. If you use Reddit, you see bot interactions (beep! boop!) all the time.
Bots can be helpful or annoying, depending on their purpose, design, and how they're deployed. On Discord, bots provide a variety of productive and less productive features to the community on the server where they "live". You can add bots to your Discord server that help you moderate members or make your server a bit more unique and fun.
For example, there are bots that play music, bots that offer funny memes on demand, bots that retrieve your game stats for you, and bots that make a loud honking sound on the channel when you're there. guest.
Find good robots
The Discord world is full of bots; there are thousands of robots available for free. There's a list of some silly and semi-helpful bots here if you like, but more serious bots can be found on the Carbonitex website, which is considered one of the best Discord bot repositories. Another reputable repository for Discord bots is called, quite simply, Bots Discord. A GitHub search Discord bots will find just about anything in public view for true hardcore.
Add bots to your Discord server
Adding Bots to your Discord server can be a long process the first time. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually quite simple.
Step 1 - Enable Admin Access
To add bots to your Discord server, you will need to be an administrator of that server. If you don't own the server, it's probably a good idea to check with the owner before adding anything to it.
- From your Discord homepage, select the server you want to add the bot to (on the left side of the Discord website).
- When selected; Choose the drop-down menu (The server name at the top left of the screen with a small down arrow next to it).
- Tap "Server Settings".
- Tap "Roles".
- Scroll down to the General Permissions setting and enable "Administrator".
- Click "Save Changes".
Step 2 – Get the bots you want
It is important to note that depending on the source website of your Bots; you can see "Invite" or "Add bots". For this example, we'll be using Dyno, but the instructions may vary slightly if you add another Bot.
Find the Bot you are going to add to your server and log in using your Discord credentials.
Tap "Invite" or "Add bot," depending on the list, then tap the server you want to add the bot to.
Follow the prompts – This will take you through a series of permissions, and it will ask for admin access, which is why step 1 is so important.
Authorize the Bot and complete the Captcha.
There are several options for bots; some may differ in their process, but following the prompts will make the installation successful.
If you're having trouble finding your server, make sure you're logged into Discord in the same browser you use for the Bots website. Also check that you are signed in to the correct account.
If you want to add someone as an admin on your server, check out this TechJunkie on Adding a New Admin.
A popular bot is Dyno, a full-featured bot with moderation features, music playback capabilities, CleverBot integration, and many other features outside the scope of this article. It has been added to over 1,4 million Discord servers, so it is popular.
You can receive dynamo on the Carbonitex website.
- Click the green “Add bot to server” button. This will bring up a confirmation dialog from Discord asking you to choose the server you want to add Dyno to. You'll need to be connected to your server for Discord to know it's you trying to add something.
- Select your server and click "Allow".
You may need to complete an “I am not a bot” captcha, but after that the bot will be automatically added to your server and you will be redirected to the admin page to manage Dyno on your server.
Peasy easy!
If you are more hardcore and want to add bots without worrying about the pretty interface, you can also add them directly. You will need to know the bot's client ID and you will need to be connected to your Discord server. This is the method you'll need to use for most GitHub bots, which don't have a web interface.
- Open your browser and paste the following URL: https://discordapp.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=&scope=bot&permissions=0.
- Replace 'Bot_Client_ID' in the URL above with the actual client ID of the bot you want to add.
- You may still need to authorize the bot even though the command uses Oauth2 to do this.
Authorize your Discord bot
Discord is very careful with bots and sometimes requires multiple permissions to allow one to work. Even though the platform uses Oauth2 to allow an authorized bot to access and interact, you may still be prompted to authorize it in the channel.
Some Popular Discord Bots
Now that you know how to add bots, which bots should you add? Well, only you know what kind of environment you want your server to have. Here's a list of some of the most popular Discord bots and why you might want to add them.
Excellent Member displays memes and has a variety of other meme-related features.
Pancake is a basic multi-function bot with moderation and music playback functions.
Nadeko plays games, offers gambling and has administration tools.
MedalBot allows your users to record clips.
RickBot offers over 4500 custom soundboards.
Sensational is a music bot that supports Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rhythm is a very stable and fully functional music bot.
Mantaro is a customizable "fun" bot.
A translator is a multilingual bot that provides instant translation between over 100 languages.
More bot resources
There are plenty of resources to help you choose, customize, and even create your own Discord bots. Here are some of the most popular and useful bot-oriented resources available on the web to help you get the most out of your bot experience.
Discord.me is a large Discord community where users can add and promote servers, but the site's overall mission is "to help people find the online communities they love." The site has 33 server categories, ranging from Military to Mature, Anime to Art, and Fitness to Furry.
An active blog keeps community members in the loop, and the site offers an NSFW toggle that lets you avoid (or seek out) servers "after dark."
Discordbots.org is a bot-themed Discord community with a huge range of resources for bot users. The site has thousands of ranked and reviewed bots and also publishes and supports its own bot-building API, available in JavaScript, Java, Python, C#/.NET, and Go variants.
For bot developers, this site is a gold mine of excellent resources and examples.
Bastionbot.org takes an interesting philosophical stance for the bot world – rather than having a dozen bots each performing their own functions, Bastion attempts to be an all-in-one bot that can handle literally anything including a server might need.
Bastion's feature list includes music, games, giveaways and promotions, suggestion channel, voting, user profiles, virtual currencies, upgrade systems, server shop, filters, searches, game stats, messages, moderation features, emojis, "fun" features like sirens and quotes, starboard, timed commands, triggers and reaction events. Bastion is a full-featured bot that can do just about anything you want it to do, and it adds features regularly.
Carbonitex is a stats collection website dedicated to Discord servers and bots and is an amazing resource for those who want to see where the action is on the server and bot playing field. You can invite Carbonitex to monitor your own server and collect statistics to show where you stand in the larger server ecosystem.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bots are a great tool to use as a Discord server admin. Here are some additional answers to your most frequently asked questions.
How to create a Discord server?
We actually have an article to walk you through creating a server. The process is quite simple and you can have multiple servers for free. This means you can create one server for your Minecraft friends and another for your Call of Duty friends.
You can even create a Discord server for work or school meetings!
Should I add a bot on each server?
Yes. Let's say you want to add the music bot to your servers; you will need to follow the steps above for each server.
I added a bot, but it does nothing. What's wrong?
Depending on the bot you added, you might have issues because there is something wrong with the bot itself. However, in most cases, you should go to "Roles" in your server settings and grant the correct permissions to your mechanical assistant.
Most robots have a dashboard on their website. If you've added the roles, but it's still not working properly, head over to the bot's website and check the moderator permissions from there. For example, the Mee6 bot is incredibly popular, but you need to enable moderator permissions from the website before it does anything.
Do I need to be an admin to add bots?
Yes, if you haven't enabled admin permissions, you can't add a bot to this server. You can always ask the owner or administrators to access these permissions or ask them to add them for you. However, it may not go so well depending on what you are trying to accomplish and your relationship with them.
