Sooner or later, everyone on Discord needs an ID. You are configuring a bot that wants a user ID instead of a username. You are reporting someone and the form asks for their ID. You are setting up moderation tooling, building an integration, or trying to check how old an account is. The ID is right there in Discord the whole time, but the copy option stays hidden until you flip one setting.
This guide covers the whole thing: enabling Developer Mode on desktop and mobile, copying user IDs, the server, channel, and message variants, what you can actually do with an ID once you have it, and whether sharing IDs is safe. Short answer on that last one: yes.
What a Discord User ID Looks Like
A user ID is a number, 17 to 19 digits long, containing nothing but digits: something like 175928847299117063. Every account has exactly one, assigned at creation, and it never changes.
That permanence is the whole point. Usernames changed format in 2023 when Discord retired the old Name#1234 discriminators, display names can change daily, and avatars change on a whim. The ID stays fixed through all of it. That is why bots, moderation logs, and Discord's own Trust & Safety team work with IDs rather than names: an ID identifies an account no matter what it is currently calling itself.
Technically, the ID is a snowflake, a 64-bit identifier with the account's creation timestamp embedded inside it. More on why that matters below, or read our full explainer on what snowflakes are.
Step 1: Enable Developer Mode
Without Developer Mode, the Copy ID options simply do not appear anywhere. Turning it on is harmless: it adds a few menu entries and changes nothing else about how Discord works.
On desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux, or the browser):
- Click the gear icon next to your username at the bottom left to open User Settings.
- Scroll down the left sidebar and click Advanced.
- Toggle Developer Mode on.
On mobile (iOS and Android):
- Tap your avatar in the bottom-right corner to open your profile.
- Open the app settings and find the Advanced section. Discord reshuffles its mobile settings occasionally, but Developer Mode has stayed under Advanced.
- Toggle Developer Mode on.
You only need to do this once, and there is no reason to ever turn it off.
Step 2: Copy a User ID
On desktop: right-click a user anywhere you can see them: the member list on the right side of a server, their name or avatar on any message, or a conversation in your DM list. Click Copy User ID, which usually appears as the last item in the context menu.
On mobile: tap the user to open their profile card, then look for Copy User ID in the profile's overflow menu (the three dots in the corner). On some app versions, a long-press on the user in a member list or chat gets you there faster. Exact menu layouts shift between updates, but once Developer Mode is on, the option is always attached to the profile.
Your own ID: on desktop, click your own avatar in the bottom-left corner and choose Copy User ID, or right-click yourself in any member list. On mobile, the option lives on your own profile the same way it does for anyone else.
Paste what you copied somewhere and sanity-check it: you should have 17 to 19 digits and nothing else. If you got @username text instead, you grabbed a mention rather than the ID.
Copying Server, Channel, and Message IDs
Developer Mode unlocks the same option for every other object type:
- Server ID: right-click the server's icon in the server list, or click the server name above the channel list, and choose Copy Server ID.
- Channel ID: right-click any channel in the channel list and choose Copy Channel ID.
- Message ID: hover over a message, open its three-dot More menu (or right-click the message), and choose Copy Message ID.
One shortcut worth knowing: Copy Message Link, which is available even without Developer Mode, gives you a URL in the form discord.com/channels/<server ID>/<channel ID>/<message ID>. That is three IDs in a single string, which is exactly why Discord's report forms and many bots accept message links directly.
What Can You Do With a User ID?
More than you might think.
Configure bots and permissions
Almost every serious Discord bot is configured with IDs: admin user IDs, log channel IDs, allowed role IDs, blocked user IDs. IDs are unambiguous where usernames are not, and they keep working after any rename. In developer contexts, an ID also powers mentions: putting <@175928847299117063> in a message renders as a clickable mention of that user.
File better moderation reports
Discord's Trust & Safety team identifies accounts by ID, and reports that include the offending user's ID plus message links get processed with far less back-and-forth. The same logic applies inside your own server: log IDs, not usernames, because a username is gone the moment someone changes it, while the ID survives every rename and even account deletion.
Find out when the account was created
Every ID embeds a creation timestamp, so you can decode any user ID into the exact date and time the account was registered. Paste it into our snowflake converter and you have the answer in seconds. This is the fastest way to spot brand-new accounts during a raid, or to verify how old an account really is before trusting it. Our account creation date guide covers that workflow end to end.
Build with the API
If you work with the Discord API, IDs are the primary keys for everything: fetching users, sending messages to channels, assigning roles, querying audit logs. Every endpoint speaks snowflakes, so collecting the right IDs is step one of any integration.
Is It Safe to Share Your ID? A Quick Privacy Note
Yes. Discord user IDs are public-by-design identifiers. Anyone who shares a server with you can already copy yours in two clicks, and Discord's API hands them out to every bot in your servers as a matter of course. Knowing an ID grants access to nothing: no email address, no IP address, no location, no message history, and no way to log in as you.
The only information an ID reveals beyond identity itself is the account's creation time, because that is encoded in the number. If that were sensitive, Discord would not print three IDs in every message link.
One important distinction: do not confuse IDs with tokens. A bot token or session token is a credential, and leaking one means account takeover. An ID is just a name in numeric form. Tokens are secrets. IDs are not.
Troubleshooting
There is no "Copy User ID" option in my menu
Developer Mode is off on the device you are using. Recheck User Settings, then Advanced, then the Developer Mode toggle. On mobile, if the option still does not appear after enabling it, update the app and reopen it.
I copied something that is not a number
You most likely hit Copy Username or grabbed a mention. Look for the entry that says Copy User ID specifically. It is usually the last item in the menu, below the username option.
The ID looks too short, or ends in zeros
Real Discord IDs are 17 to 19 digits. If yours is shorter, it was truncated somewhere along the way. Spreadsheets are the usual culprit: Excel and Google Sheets mangle long numbers into scientific notation and round off the final digits, so always store Discord IDs as text.
Common Questions
Can I find a username from an ID?
Not directly in the Discord client, but any bot with access to the API can look up the account behind an ID, and pasting <@ plus the ID plus > into a message on a shared server renders the user's current name as a mention. This is the standard way moderators re-identify an account from an old log entry after a rename.
Does an ID stop working if the account is deleted?
The account becomes inaccessible, but the ID itself remains valid as a reference. Old moderation logs, audit entries, and reports that recorded the ID still point unambiguously at that account, and the creation timestamp inside the ID still decodes correctly. This is exactly why IDs, not usernames, are the right thing to log.
Do I need Developer Mode forever?
No, but there is no cost to leaving it on. The toggle adds Copy ID menu entries and changes nothing else about Discord. Most moderators and bot developers enable it once and never think about it again.
Try It
Once you have an ID, do something useful with it: paste it into our free snowflake converter to see the exact moment the account, server, channel, or message was created. It runs entirely in your browser, needs no login, and decodes any valid Discord ID instantly.