Apps on Discord help bring a bit more liveliness to your conversations with useful features, text-based games, and tools for any situation. Apps also include Activities, that bring larger full-screen experiences to you and your friends, including casual and competitive games, shared collaboration tools, and ways to listen to music together, all on mobile or desktop. Enjoy ‘em wherever you go! 

So, where do you find apps? How do you use ‘em? Do you have to add Activities or other apps to your server before using them? How can you make your own application for Discord? 

Read on for some quick-but-sweet responses to these popular questions. 

Where Can I Find Activities & Apps on Discord

Look under your seat: they’ve been with you the WHOLE TIME! Well, only until just recently…

We recently released the App Launcher, where you can check out thousands of apps, including Activities, in a single space. It’s in your chat bar in text chats and at the bottom of voice calls. You're just a click away if you see the button with shapes on it!

When you press that playful-lookin’ button, you’ll be presented with the App Launcher! You can browse some of the latest featured apps, or use the search bar on the top to find the perfect one for you.

There are apps for servers and DMs, Activities to play with your friends… if you can’t think of something you want right now, the App Launcher is always just a click away. 

You can also browse through the Discord App Directory, where you’ll find an even BIGGER selection of apps that includes some specifically designed for servers and the communities that live within ‘em.  

You can explore the Discord App Directory for yourself by clicking on the name of any server you’re viewing, and then choosing “App Directory.” 

How to Add Apps to Your Discord Server

If you find something you like in the Discord App Directory or see an app in your friend’s server that you really like, it’s easy to add it to your own server! Just press the giant “Add App” button, shown on both the App Directory and on an app’s profile. 

But why would you wanna do that in the first place? The Discord Developer community makes apps for all sorts of use cases — if you’ve thought of a reason for an app to exist, there’s a good chance someone made it. 

Some of the reasons you may want to add an app to your Discord server include…

• Some additional moderation support! Our friend AutoMod will love their new bot buddy. 
• Some moderation apps allow what’s called “reaction roles,” where people can give themselves a role for your server by reacting to a certain message. Give a Thumbs, get a role! 
• Add cute lil’ text-based games to your server, such as farming or fishing games.
• Let everyone easily access and post cat pictures, on-demand. Limitless cat pictures. The cat pictures will never stop. Is this punishment, or salvation?

Pro tip: If you’re looking for features like Reaction Roles and additional Moderation support built directly in Discord, consider using our Community server features that offer similar features! 

How to Use Discord Apps in ANY chat

Back in the early days of apps on Discord, most were bots that could only be added to servers. But now, in today’s wondrous new world, you can add apps to… YOUR OWN ACCOUNT! It’s as if your pocket protector held apps instead of pens, making your pocket protector actually cool for once. 

‍The next time you find an app you like, you’ll see an “Add to My Apps” option when you press the “Add App” button. Click that, then approve all the necessary account permissions. Now, you’ll find that app waiting for you in the App Launcher.

When you press the “/” to use a Slash Command, you’ll see all the apps you’ve saved in one space, letting you either type out a command or click through your list and find the right one.

The possibilities are endless!… but yeah yeah, go ahead and spam those cats first if you must — get it outta your system. 

Why Can’t I Launch an App in a Discord Server I’m In?

Apps on Discord can bring all sorts of new capabilities to servers on Discord. While these can liven up many of the chats you’re in, some servers and their moderation teams might run a tight ship and may not allow you to use any apps they haven’t added to the server themselves. 

2If you’re unable to use an app or play an Activity on a server, double-check your roles or permissions to see if you have either the “External Apps” or “Activities” permissions toggled on. The server may also restrict using either of these to specific channels in their server, so take a peek around and see if there’s a space dedicated to using apps freely! 

And of course, you can always hop into a DM or a different server instead!

How to Listen to Music on Discord Using Apps 

Listening to music on Discord with your friends has gotten way easier, now with fully fleshed-out, music-focused Activities available. Some of them let you and your friends collaborate on the same music queue, so you don’t have to fight over who’s the one person who gets to control all the music. 

Check out a few of these lovely music-focused apps on Discord: 

• Lofi: Discord’s own Lofi music Activity! Hop in and listen in the background while doin’ whatever.
• Rythm: Gather ‘round and jam together in one of the longest-running music apps on Discord.
• TuneIn Radio & Podcasts: Radio stations around the world, all within your call! 

How to Make Stickers & Emojis for Discord Using Apps!

Using custom emojis and stickers is almost essential to having a great time on Discord experience: you can upload nearly anything you’d like an emoji, from cute lil’ doodles you made yourself, to the face of your friend who was caught napping in a Discord call. 

Some apps on Discord can take your images and turn them into something you can use as a sticker, including the Picsart app! Next time you see an image that would make for a good sticker, hover over it and use the Sticker Maker command from Picsart.

It’ll take out the subject and give you an image that will work well as a Discord sticker or emoji, like this: 

Keep in mind that there are still file size requirements for emojis and stickers. You may need to download your new image and resize it for the best results. 

How to Make Your Own Discord App!

So you wanna make your own app for Discord, eh?! Maybe you want one to do something no one’s ever thought of before! Maybe you want to do something similar to other apps but in your own unique way. Or, you just want to make something for your small friend server, or an app to tinker with as you learn to code.

To start your development journey, hop on over to our own Discord Developer Portal — we’ve got toooons of helpful documents to reference, including how to build Discord apps that live in your chat or Activities to play with your friends. 

We even have a page called “Build your First Discord App!” See, we were ready for ya. 

It could be pretty quiet reading all these documents by yourself, but you don’t have to go alone! The Discord Developers community is full of fellow app devs of all skill levels, and we’d love to have you join us. 

Use the big ol’ button below to join the Discord Developers community: 

No bots about it: Apps bring SO much to Discord, and the stuff that apps and Activities can do to Discord is constantly expanding. There are ways to play games, listen to music, help you out in your conversations, and help moderate your communities as needed! And if you’re down for it, you can always build your own. 

If you need additional support when trying out apps, check out our “Using Apps on Discord” support article.