Discord Family Center and safety settings, step by step
How to set up Discord's Family Center and the privacy and safety settings that matter most for teens, from DMs to sensitive media filters.
- Family Center shows you who your teen adds and messages, and servers they join, but not message content.
- Turn on sensitive media filters and limit DMs and friend requests.
- Set these up together; your teen has to agree to Family Center.
Discord's safety settings are in User Settings (the gear icon), mostly under Content & Social and Data & Privacy. Discord renames and reorganises these from time to time, so you may see slightly different labels.
Family Center
Family Center lets parents and guardians connect their own Discord account to their teen's. You'll see an overview of:
- Friends your teen recently added
- Servers they joined or participated in
- Users they messaged or called in DMs and group DMs
You won't see the content of messages. Your teen also sees what you can see. Some versions send a weekly email summary.
How to set it up
- Create your own Discord account if you don't have one.
- On your teen's account, go to User Settings, Family Center, and generate a QR code.
- On your phone, scan it with the Discord app.
- Your teen accepts the connection.
Safety settings
Sensitive media
Under Content & Social, set sensitive media filters to Block or Blur for DMs from friends, DMs from others, and server channels. Teens have stricter defaults, but check.
Direct messages
- Allow DMs from other members in servers: off. This stops anyone in a shared server from DMing your teen unless they're friends.
- Message requests: on, so messages from people they don't know go to a separate inbox.
Friend requests
Under Content & Social, limit who can send you a friend request to friends of friends or server members, rather than everyone.
Safety alerts
Discord has teen safety features that warn teens when someone new messages them, and can blur sensitive images. Make sure they're on.
Privacy
Under Data & Privacy, review what Discord uses to personalise the experience, and turn off what you don't want.
Server settings
For each server, your teen can open Privacy Settings and turn off Direct Messages from members of that server.
Blocking and reporting
Show your teen how to:
- Block a user (right-click or long-press their name)
- Report a message (long-press the message, Report)
- Leave a server
Talk about it
Family Center works best as an agreement. Explain that you're not reading their messages; you just want to know if someone new is contacting them. See Discord safety for parents.
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