Reference

What each Discord permission actually does.

Maintained by Perminator · Reviewed 2026-11-01

Discord's permission screen is a list of switches with one-line descriptions. The failures happen in the gaps: a flag that looks like "rename" and also deletes, a deny that loses to an allow on a different role, a new toggle that arrived turned on. This page is the gap. Each entry says when to grant the flag, when to leave it off, and the mistake that does not show up until later.

Names follow Discord's developer documentation as checked in November 2026. The client sometimes labels the same flag differently — Timeout Members is MODERATE_MEMBERS, Manage Server is MANAGE_GUILD, and the channel editor calls Manage Roles "Manage Permissions." The API name is under each heading so you can match the two. The grant, withhold, and mistake notes are ours, not Discord's.

Nothing here requires an account. If you only need a role, use the staff planner. If a toggle is on and the action still fails, use when a permission does nothing.

What ordinary members need

These are the flags on @everyone, or on a Member role if you have stripped @everyone bare. Anything you leave on @everyone is held by the next account that joins.

View Channels

VIEW_CHANNEL

Grant it when: On @everyone for every public channel. On a staff role, as a channel allow, for rooms that role should see.
Leave it off when: On @everyone inside any category that is not public. Deny it on the category, not on each current role. The recipe is in locking channels without a lockout .
The mistake: Hiding a channel by denying Send Messages. People can still read it. Secrecy is View Channel. Also, a deny of View Channel makes the rest of that channel's permissions irrelevant for that member: they cannot send, react, or connect if they cannot see it.

Send Messages

SEND_MESSAGES

Grant it when: On @everyone in public conversation channels. On a staff role in announcements, as a channel allow, with @everyone denied.
Leave it off when: In announcements, ticket archives, and log channels.
The mistake: Assuming Send Messages covers threads. It does not. Thread replies need Send Messages in Threads. Denying Send Messages also makes Mention Everyone, Attach Files, Embed Links, and text-to-speech irrelevant in that channel, because there is no message to attach them to.

Send Messages in Threads

SEND_MESSAGES_IN_THREADS

Grant it when: Wherever members are allowed to reply in threads. Forums need this or people can create a post and not answer it, depending on how the forum is set up.
Leave it off when: In announcement channels where threads should be staff-only replies.
The mistake: Turning off Send Messages and believing threads are covered, or the reverse. They are two switches. A member can be able to talk in a channel and frozen inside its threads.

Read Message History

READ_MESSAGE_HISTORY

Grant it when: On for public channels. Off for ticket channels if a new participant should not read the conversation from before they joined.
Leave it off when: Only when you have a reason. Without it, a channel looks empty and people assume it is broken.
The mistake: Using it as a privacy control. It hides the past, not the next message, and not the channel itself.

Add Reactions

ADD_REACTIONS

Grant it when: On @everyone if members should be able to put a new emoji on a message.
Leave it off when: In announcements, if you want a fixed set of reactions and no improvisation.
The mistake: Expecting this to freeze reactions that are already on a message. Members without the permission can still click an existing reaction. It also does not stop a bot from reacting with the bot's own permissions.

Mention Everyone

MENTION_EVERYONE

Grant it when: As a channel override on the announcements channel, for the one role that is supposed to post announcements. Not as a server-level grant.
Leave it off when: On @everyone, on moderators, and on any role that can type in general chat.
The mistake: Granting it on a role because that role "needs to announce." The role can then mention @everyone and @here from every channel it can speak in. A channel override limits the ping to the channel.

Attach Files and Embed Links

ATTACH_FILES, EMBED_LINKS

Grant it when: Attach Files where you want images and uploads. Embed Links where you want posted URLs to unfurl into previews.
Leave it off when: Attach Files in channels that are being used to drop malware or NSFW media. Embed Links if scam links are the problem and you would rather they stay as plain URLs.
The mistake: Treating them as one toggle. You can allow screenshots and refuse link previews, or the reverse. Neither hides the channel.

Use Application Commands

USE_APPLICATION_COMMANDS

Grant it when: On @everyone if members should use slash commands from bots you installed.
Leave it off when: In channels where bot commands are noise. You can deny it on a single channel without removing the bots.
The mistake: Removing the bot because commands are annoying in one channel. A channel deny is enough, and it does not affect the bot's other permissions.

Use External Apps

USE_EXTERNAL_APPS

Grant it when: Only if you want apps members installed on their own accounts to post publicly in your channels.
Leave it off when: On @everyone, unless you have decided that personal apps may speak to the room.
The mistake: Confusing this with bots you invited. Those are server integrations. This flag covers apps that are not installed on the server. With it off, members can still use those apps, but the replies stay visible only to them.

Voice and stage

Voice permissions apply to voice channels. Stage channels share some of them. A member who cannot View Channel the voice room will not see it to join.

Connect and Speak

CONNECT, SPEAK

Grant it when: Both, for ordinary voice rooms. Connect without Speak is a listen-only room, which is what you want for a stage audience or a quiet overflow.
Leave it off when: Speak in rooms that are meant to be broadcast by a few people. Connect on rooms that are staff-only, using the same @everyone deny as a text lock.
The mistake: Denying Connect and assuming every voice permission is gone. A member who is already in the channel can still set the voice channel status without Connect. Disconnect them if you need them out. Priority Speaker, Video (the Go Live / stream flag), and Use Voice Activity are separate and should stay off for anyone who does not need them.

Mute, Deafen, and Move Members

MUTE_MEMBERS, DEAFEN_MEMBERS, MOVE_MEMBERS

Grant it when: All three on moderators who run voice. Move Members on event hosts, if the event is in voice and they are not moderators.
Leave it off when: On @everyone. Mute and Deafen are invisible to the person being taught "how voice works" and are easy to abuse in a dispute.
The mistake: Giving Move Members to every host permanently. It lets them drag anyone they can act on into another channel, including channels the target cannot see. Remove the host role when the event ends.

Moderation actions

These are limited by role order. A moderator cannot use them on someone whose highest role is equal or higher, and Administrator does not lift that limit. The hierarchy rules are in how the role hierarchy works .

Timeout Members

MODERATE_MEMBERS

Grant it when: On trial moderators and above. This is the right first power. The maximum length is 28 days, and it expires on its own.
Leave it off when: On members, hosts, and cosmetic roles.
The mistake: Expecting a timeout to affect an Administrator, or someone above the moderator in the role list. It will not. The client calls this Timeout Members; the API calls it MODERATE_MEMBERS.

Kick Members

KICK_MEMBERS

Grant it when: On moderators. A kick removes the member and their roles. They can rejoin with any valid invite.
Leave it off when: On trial moderators. A mistaken kick is recoverable only if you still have an invite and you know who it was.
The mistake: Using kick as a ban. Determined accounts come straight back. If they should not return, that is Ban Members.

Ban Members

BAN_MEMBERS

Grant it when: On senior moderators and admins. Bans can delete up to seven days of that member's messages, which is the right tool after a scam wave.
Leave it off when: On day-to-day moderators if you want bans reviewed. On anyone who does not also understand they must write down why.
The mistake: Treating a ban as permanent in the record even though any fellow ban-holder can unban. Unban is the same flag, not a separate one. Keep the reason somewhere the audit log's 45 days will not outlast.

Manage Messages

MANAGE_MESSAGES

Grant it when: On moderators, in the channels they are supposed to clean. A category override is better than a server-wide grant if they should not delete in the staff room.
Leave it off when: On trial moderators until you have watched them work, and on anyone whose job is only voice.
The mistake: Granting it so someone can pin a message or talk through slowmode. Pin Messages and Bypass Slowmode are their own flags now. Manage Messages is the power to delete other people's messages.

Pin Messages

PIN_MESSAGES

Grant it when: On the role that curates a channel, if pinning is a real part of the job.
Leave it off when: On @everyone in busy channels. Pins become a second chat.
The mistake: Handing out Manage Messages because the client used to bundle pinning with deletion. Check the permission list in your client. If Pin Messages is present on its own, grant that and leave deletion to moderators.

Bypass Slowmode

BYPASS_SLOWMODE

Grant it when: On moderators and, as a channel override, on event hosts in the one channel that is slowed down.
Leave it off when: On @everyone. Slowmode with a public bypass is not slowmode.
The mistake: Granting Manage Messages to beat slowmode. You just gave them message deletion.

Manage Nicknames

MANAGE_NICKNAMES

Grant it when: On moderators. Change Nickname, the right to rename yourself, can stay on members if nicknames are part of the community.
Leave it off when: On trial moderators. Renaming someone into a slur is a common first abuse, and it is visible in the member list immediately.
The mistake: Confusing the two. Change Nickname edits your own name. Manage Nicknames edits other people's. Only the second one belongs to staff.

Structure of the server

These flags change the server, not a conversation. They belong to as few people as possible. Several of them require two-factor authentication once you enable Require 2FA for moderator actions. That requirement applies to human accounts. It does not apply to bots.

Manage Channels

MANAGE_CHANNELS

Grant it when: On admins, and on a channel-manager role only if creating and deleting channels is genuinely their job.
Leave it off when: On moderators who only need to rename nothing and delete messages. They do not need this.
The mistake: Believing it means "rename a channel." It also means delete the channel, edit the topic, and change permission overrides. A moderator with it can expose a private category. Discord will not split those.

Manage Roles

MANAGE_ROLES

Grant it when: On admins. On a bot, only when the bot's job is to assign roles, and only with the bot's role placed directly above the roles it may assign.
Leave it off when: On moderators who "just need to hand out Verified." That job cannot be expressed with this flag. The flag lets them edit and delete every role below their highest role, and grant any permission they hold themselves.
The mistake: Missing the channel label. In a channel's permission editor this same flag is called Manage Permissions. An allow there lets that role rewrite who can see that channel. A server-wide Manage Roles grant includes it everywhere the hierarchy allows.

Manage Server

MANAGE_GUILD

Grant it when: On admins. This is the flag that invites bots and changes server-level settings.
Leave it off when: On moderators. "They install the bots" is not a moderator job. An admin can invite the bot and drop its permissions before it lands. See bots and webhooks .
The mistake: Forgetting that every integration added in a bad evening remains after you remove Manage Server from the role. The flag is the door. The bots are still in the room.

Manage Webhooks

MANAGE_WEBHOOKS

Grant it when: On admins. A webhook URL posts into one channel as any name and avatar.
Leave it off when: On moderators and on bots that do not need to create webhooks themselves.
The mistake: Deleting the impersonating messages and leaving the webhook. The URL still works. Delete it under Integrations.

Create Invite

CREATE_INSTANT_INVITE

Grant it when: On a role, if members should recruit. Or on nobody, if you publish one invite yourself and that is enough.
Leave it off when: On @everyone in a server that has already had a raid, or that is supposed to stay small.
The mistake: Turning it off and assuming old invite links die. They do not. Revoke them in the invite list. Vanity URLs are separate.

Administrator

ADMINISTRATOR

Grant it when: On nobody, if you can avoid it. The owner already bypasses channel locks without this flag.
Leave it off when: On moderators, bots, "temporary" fixes, and any role whose name is a person's.
The mistake: Thinking it is a bundle of the other toggles and nothing more. It grants every permission, including ones Discord adds later, and it ignores every channel override. It does not let someone manage roles above their own highest role, and it does not let them act on the owner. Those are the only ceilings. The longer case against it is why moderators should not have Administrator .

View Audit Log

VIEW_AUDIT_LOG

Grant it when: On senior moderators and admins. The log is how you check kicks, bans, role edits, and bot invites. Entries are kept for 45 days.
Leave it off when: On the whole moderator team, if the log contains investigations they should not browse.
The mistake: Treating the log as a backup. It records that a channel was deleted. It does not put the channel back.

Threads

MANAGE_THREADS, CREATE_PUBLIC_THREADS, CREATE_PRIVATE_THREADS

Grant it when: Create Public Threads on members if threads are part of the community. Manage Threads on moderators, so they can archive, lock, and see private threads.
Leave it off when: Create Private Threads on @everyone unless you want members making rooms you do not see in the channel list. Manage Threads is what lets staff see those.
The mistake: Giving Manage Threads to everyone who "uses threads a lot." It includes viewing all private threads, which is a moderation power, not a convenience.

Create Expressions and Manage Expressions

CREATE_GUILD_EXPRESSIONS, MANAGE_GUILD_EXPRESSIONS

Grant it when: Create Expressions on a role if members may upload emoji or soundboard sounds that they can then edit themselves. Manage Expressions on admins, because it edits and deletes everyone's.
Leave it off when: Manage Expressions on the people who only needed to upload one emoji.
The mistake: Granting the manage flag for an upload. Create is the smaller one. Manage is every emoji, sticker, and sound on the server.

Create Events and Manage Events

CREATE_EVENTS, MANAGE_EVENTS

Grant it when: Create Events on event hosts. Manage Events only if they must edit or delete events other people created.
Leave it off when: Manage Events on every host. Create is enough for their own events.
The mistake: The same pattern as expressions. The manage flag covers other people's events, including deleting the ones your community is already planning around.

Overrides, hierarchy, and 2FA

Role order is not channel order

Role position decides who can kick, ban, time out, rename, or edit roles: only people and roles strictly below your highest role. It does not decide channel access. On a channel, Discord combines every role's denies, then applies every role's allows. An allow on one of a member's roles beats a deny on another. A member-specific row beats both. Administrator skips the channel step entirely. The worked order is in channel permission overrides.

Some denies make other flags irrelevant

Denying View Channel means the member cannot use the channel, even if Send Messages is still allowed on paper. Denying Send Messages makes mention, attach, embed, and text-to-speech irrelevant there, because there is nothing to attach them to. Denying Connect blocks the rest of voice for someone who is not already in the channel. These are consequences of the action being impossible, not extra red crosses in the editor. Do not "fix" a hidden channel by also denying twenty other flags. Deny the one that matters.

Require 2FA covers people, not bots

Safety Setup → Require 2FA for moderator actions stops human accounts that have not enabled two-factor authentication from using the powerful flags. Turn it on, and tell staff first so your remaining moderators are not locked out mid-raid. It does not challenge a bot token. A bot with Ban Members can still ban. That is why bot roles belong in the planner next to human roles, not in a separate "it's just a bot" pile.

Flags you can leave off

These are real permissions. They are omitted from the entries above because they are not where servers get hurt, as long as you do not grant them out of habit. Leave them off until the sentence matches your server.

View Server Insights. Analytics for community servers. Off for anyone who does not look at them.
View Creator Monetization Analytics. Role-subscription numbers. Off unless you sell roles and the person handles that money.
Request to Speak. Stage audiences. Grant on the audience, not on moderators, who should already be speakers.
Use Activities. Embedded activities in voice. Fine on members. Irrelevant to staff powers.
Use Soundboard and Use External Sounds. Leave external sounds off if people are playing sounds from other servers over your voice chat.
Priority Speaker. Ducks everyone else when that person talks. Easy to annoy a room with. Off by default.
Use External Emoji and Use External Stickers. Cosmetic. Off if outside emoji is being used to dodge your filters.
Send Text-to-Speech Messages. Reads the message aloud in voice. Almost never worth it on @everyone.
Send Voice Messages. Voice notes in chat. A preference, not a staff permission.
Create Polls. On members if you want polls. It does not grant any moderation power.
Set Voice Channel Status. The short status on a voice channel. A member already in the channel can set it even without Connect.

What changed, and how this page stays current

Discord adds flags without a long announcement, and old guides keep describing the previous client. As of this review, these are the ones most likely to make an older checklist wrong:

Pin Messages and Bypass Slowmode are their own flags. Manage Messages is deletion, not the bundle it used to feel like.
Create Expressions and Manage Expressions are different. Create Events and Manage Events are different. The manage flag covers other people's work.
Use External Apps governs personal apps that are not installed on the server. Off means those replies stay private to the person who ran them.
Send Polls is its own flag and grants no moderation power.
Set Voice Channel Status still works for someone already connected, even if Connect is denied.

When a new flag shows up in the client, this page is the one we update, and the date at the top moves with it. Guides that depend on a specific flag link here instead of repeating a description that will go stale. If an entry disagrees with what your client just did, email hello@perminator.xyz with the permission name and what you observed. We do not take guest posts.