Discord has rapidly become one of the most popular communication platforms, used across various devices for text, voice, and video interactions.
However, for users with limited data plans, the concern of how much data Discord uses is significant. From text messages and images to voice chats, video calls, and active server participation, each feature affects data usage differently.
Despite its widespread use, Discord does not officially disclose data consumption details or offer a data saver mode, making it crucial for users to understand and manage their data usage effectively.
Rather than tracking the usage of data by Discord, we have identified how much data different Discord features use.
Discord offers various features that can affect your data usage significantly. Understanding how each feature consumes data helps you manage your usage more effectively.
Here’s a detailed look at the data consumption for each key feature:
Discord text messaging window
Text messages on Discord are quite data-efficient. Sending and receiving plain text messages typically uses minimal data. You can expect around 1 KB per message, making this feature perfect for users with limited data plans.
How much data does Discord use? For simple text messaging, the answer is not much.
When you add images, GIFs, or other media to your messages, data consumption increases. A single image can range from a few KBs to several MBs, depending on the resolution and size. GIFs, being animated, consume even more data.
Sending and receiving such media-rich messages can quickly add up, so be mindful if you're on a tight data budget.
Voice calls on Discord use more data compared to text messages but are still relatively manageable. On average, a voice call can consume around 28KB per minute.
This means that a one-hour voice call might use around 1.68MB of data. If you're frequently on voice calls, this can accumulate, so it’s essential to keep track.
Video calls are among the most data-intensive features on Discord. The data usage depends heavily on the video quality. For standard video calls, you can expect to use around 270 MB per hour.
However, this can increase with higher video resolutions. If you're on a metered connection, it’s wise to monitor your video call duration and quality settings.
Being active on multiple servers and exchanging messages regularly also impacts your data usage. Each server activity, including scrolling through channels, viewing new posts, and engaging with server members, consumes data.
The more active you are, the more data you will use. It's a cumulative effect of small data usage adding up.
Live broadcasts and screen sharing are the most data-hungry features on Discord. Depending on the quality of the broadcast or shared screen, you might use up to 2.5GB per hour.
These activities require a stable and high-speed internet connection to function smoothly and can quickly drain your data allowance.
No wonder, our data pack gets sucked up after a half an hour live stream. But can we monitor this data usage? Well, there are plenty of ways for every user, on every device.
Keeping track of how much data Discord uses can help you manage your data plan better, especially if you have limited bandwidth. Here’s a detailed guide on how to monitor Discord's data usage on different devices:
If you are using Discord on your web browser or on your computer, here is a straightforward method to track its data usage. Here’s how you can do it on both Windows and Mac:
For Windows Users:
In this section, you'll see a list of apps on your device along with the amount of data used by each. This data is provided separately for each network you’re connected to (e.g., Wi-Fi, Ethernet) and covers the last 30 days.
This feature gives you a rough idea of how much data Discord has consumed over the past month. You can refresh this data to see how much data is used the next time you open and use Discord.
For Mac Users:
This tab displays the current data usage by each open app. Note that this data resets every time you restart your computer, offering a good estimate of how much data Discord used in a single session.
If you use Discord on your browser instead of the desktop app, you can see how much data each tab consumes. However, since Discord is mostly used via the desktop app, this guide focuses on checking data usage for the app.
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To monitor Discord’s data usage on your mobile device, follow these steps:
For iPhone Users:
Here, you can see the data used by each app, including Discord. Note that this information is up to the last time the data was reset. You can check the date since this data was last reset by scrolling down to the bottom of the screen.
For Android Users:
You'll now see graphs showing Discord’s data usage for a particular time frame and network (mobile data/Wi-Fi).
By regularly monitoring your data usage, you can ensure that you stay within your data limits and avoid unexpected overage charges.
Knowing how much data Discord uses can help you manage your usage more effectively, ensuring a smoother experience.
Apart from knowing how much data Discord uses, or how we can monitor such usages, let us understand how to reduce these data usage. Here are the exact settings that you need to tweak to save tons of data.
Not happy with how much data Discord is using? No problem. There are a few tweaks you can make to significantly cut down on your data consumption without compromising your Discord experience.
To minimize data usage on your mobile device, follow these steps:
These settings help reduce the amount of data required to load media content in your chats, significantly lowering your overall data usage.
This will prevent Discord from using data to send system notifications, which can add up over time.
Disabling animated stickers reduces the data used to load and display these animations, helping to keep your data usage in check.
You can apply similar settings on your computer to reduce data usage:
Note that the ‘Notifications’ setting isn’t available on the computer version.
By tweaking these settings, you can keep your data usage in check while still enjoying all the core features of Discord.
Monitoring and adjusting how much data Discord uses can make a big difference, especially if you have limited bandwidth. Try these tips and see how much data you save! Now is the time for a recap.
Discord is an incredibly versatile platform, but its features can significantly impact your data usage. Text messages are data-efficient, but adding images, GIFs, and other media increases consumption.
Voice and video calls, along with server activities, can use a substantial amount of data, especially if you're active for long periods. Live broadcasts and screen sharing are among the most data-intensive features, requiring careful monitoring if you have a limited data plan.
Awareness of how much data Discord uses is essential for users with limited data plans. By understanding and managing your data consumption, you can enjoy all of Discord's features without worrying about exceeding your data limits.
With these tips, you can optimize your Discord experience while keeping your data usage in check.
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A1: For Windows users, you can track data usage by going to ‘Settings’ (Windows Key + I) → ‘Network and Internet’ → ‘Data usage’. This will show you the data used by each app over the last 30 days.
A2: On average, a one-hour voice call on Discord consumes around 1.68MB of data. It’s relatively manageable but can add up if you're frequently on voice calls.
A3: You can reduce data usage by disabling automatic downloads of images and GIFs, enabling image compression, disabling website previews, turning off system notifications, and stopping the animation of stickers.
A4: Live broadcasts and screen sharing are among the most data-intensive features, using up to 2.5GB per hour. These activities require a stable, high-speed internet connection.
