Discord’s data request sits in User Settings, under the Data & Privacy tab, and Discord documents it on two separate help centre pages that do not give the same procedure. What arrives is a ZIP folder of JSON files holding the messages you have sent, your account record and your activity. Discord says the request can take up to 30 days, and that the download link it emails stays active for 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two pages are Requesting a Copy of your Data and Your Discord Data Package, both in the Data Privacy section of Discord’s help centre. This guide sets out both, names the device each list of steps is scoped to, and says where the documentation stops rather than guessing past it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both pages describe the same request and number it differently. Requesting a Copy of your Data gives four steps for desktop and browser and three for mobile. Your Discord Data Package gives five for desktop and browser and six for mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The step count is the smaller problem. On whether the phone app lets you choose what goes into the package, the two pages say opposite things. The frequently asked questions on Requesting a Copy of your Data state that on desktop or browser you can select which specific data you would like to receive, and that on mobile you can only request all of your data. Your Discord Data Package gives mobile a fourth step in which a Submit Data Request page appears for you to select which data you would like to request in your package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both pages were live and carried that wording when this guide was written. Discord has not reconciled them, so neither is taken here as the correction of the other. The one thing they agree on is that the selection step exists on desktop and browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discord splits the procedure by device, under headings, and the two devices do not share a route. The five steps below are the ones Your Discord Data Package publishes under its heading Desktop\/Browser, so they describe the desktop app and the browser and not the phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under its own heading Mobile, the same page publishes a different list, and these six steps apply only to the phone app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other page covers the same two routes more briefly, as four desktop steps and three mobile steps, and it names the mobile button Request all of my data with no selection step after it. Whichever route you take, Discord says the package goes to the email address associated with your Discord account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discord states the request process can take up to 30 days to complete, and both pages say the confirmation tells you to expect the package within 30 days. Your Discord Data Package adds that the download link stays active for 30 days once it arrives. Requesting a Copy of your Data does not mention how long the link lasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three conditions sit around that window, all stated on Requesting a Copy of your Data. Your account must be verified with an email address before you can make the request. You must wait for a current request to finish before submitting a new one. The link goes to the address linked to the account at the moment you made the request, and changing the address afterwards will not redirect it. Discord gives privacy@discord.com as the contact if you have lost access to the account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deleting or disabling the account before the link arrives cancels the request. Discord states this on both pages, and on Your Discord Data Package it sits in a box marked Important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neither page says whether the link can be re-sent, or whether the 30 day window can be extended. That is a gap in the documentation, not a hidden option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discord calls the result a Data Package and describes it as a ZIP folder of files containing all of your Discord data for your account. The files inside are JSON. Discord says they open in Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on macOS, and that you can drag and drop them into a browser such as Chrome or Firefox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the package is not conversation. The account folder alone holds your current avatar and a folder of recently used ones, and a JSON file that Discord says carries your user ID, username, phone number and email, your account settings, any flags on the account, your IP address, your connected accounts, a list of active sessions with their IP addresses, your friends and block lists, your payment sources and payment history, your developer information, activity statistics, the notes you have written about other users, and your library applications. Alongside those sit age signals, including a date of birth field Discord says is anonymised, and estimated and inferred age group fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five more folders sit beside the account folder, before you reach the messages. Activity holds four JSON records of what you have done on Discord, one of which Discord labels Trust & Safety and says is retained for up to two years. Activities holds data from Discord’s own games and features. Servers, Ads and Support Tickets each hold their own JSON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A ZIP containing JSON is the same broad shape Telegram’s desktop export produces, and the guide to exporting your Telegram chat history<\/a> covers what that JSON holds. Whether a given service can read a particular file at all is a separate question, set out in which chat export files can be analysed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One practical consequence of that account folder: the package carries a phone number, an email address and IP addresses in plain JSON, next to the messages. What a service does with identifiers before it reads anything is therefore worth checking, and whether a chat analysis removes names<\/a> sets out one approach to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discord’s description of this folder is narrow and worth quoting closely. It contains all the messages that you have sent on Discord. They are split into folders for direct messages, group messages and the channels you have chatted in, each folder named with the Channel ID, and a separate JSON file maps every Channel ID to its channel name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each folder holds two JSON files. The first records where the messages were sent: for a server, the Guild ID, Channel ID and channel name; for a direct message or group chat, the Channel ID and the user IDs. The second is the transcript, and Discord publishes four fields per message. The message ID. The timestamp, which Discord describes as the date and exact time your message was sent. Contents, which Discord describes as your message. And Attachments, which Discord describes as a CDN link to any images or files you included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What neither page says is whether anyone else’s messages are in there. Discord describes the folder only as what you have sent, and the four published fields name no other sender. That is where the documentation stops, and this page does not fill the gap in. If one side of a conversation is what you are after on purpose, reading only your own messages<\/a> covers what a one-sided record can and cannot show.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe messages folder holds what you sent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n