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Discord Markdown Guide

Learn and copy instantly: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, spoilers, inline and block code, block quotes, subtext, lists, links, user/role/channel mentions. The complete cheat sheet for Discord text formatting.

Free, no limits
No login
Runs in your browser

Tool

Copy any syntax and paste it into a Discord message to see it render. Replace the IDs in mentions with real user / role / channel IDs.

Bold

**bold text**

Italic

*italic* or _italic_

Underline

__underlined text__

Bold + italic

***bold and italic***

Strikethrough

~~strikethrough~~

Spoiler

||spoiler content||

Inline code

`console.log('hi')`

Code block

```js
console.log('hi')
```

Block quote

> quoted text

Multi-line quote

>>> first line
second line

Subtext (sidenote)

# small grey text

Link

[click here](https://example.com)

User mention

<@123456789012345678>

Role mention

<@&123456789012345678>

Bullet list

- first item
- second item

Numbered list

1. first item
2. second item

About this tool

Discord supports Markdown for text formatting in messages, channel topics, embeds and bot responses. This reference covers every syntax with ready-to-copy examples.

Use bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, spoilers, code blocks, block quotes, subtext, lists, links and mentions to make your messages clearer and more engaging.

How to use

Scroll through the formatting reference below.

Copy the syntax you need.

Paste it into Discord - it renders instantly.

The subset of markdown Discord implements

Discord supports bold with double asterisks, italics with single asterisks or underscores, underline with double underscores, strikethrough with double tildes, and any combination of those nested. Inline code uses single backticks and code blocks use triple backticks, optionally followed by a language name for syntax highlighting.

Block quotes use a leading angle bracket, and a triple angle bracket quotes everything to the end of the message. Headings using one to three hashes and both ordered and unordered lists are supported in message content. Masked links - link text in square brackets followed by a URL in parentheses - work for bots and in embeds, but not in ordinary user messages.

Notably absent: tables, images, footnotes, horizontal rules and arbitrary HTML. Text formatted elsewhere and pasted in will lose all of those silently.

Escaping and code blocks

A backslash before a markdown character prevents it being interpreted, which is how you write a literal asterisk or underscore. Inside inline code or a code block, no escaping is needed at all - everything between the backticks is literal, which is the simplest way to show markup without it rendering.

Underscores inside words are a common annoyance: a file name like some_long_name renders with the middle italicised, because Discord treats the underscores as emphasis markers. Wrapping it in backticks or escaping each underscore both fix it, and the backticks are usually more readable.

Why Markdown makes better messages

Raw text without formatting is harder to scan. Bold headings, code blocks for technical snippets, spoiler tags for content that might surprise people, and lists for multiple items all help readers find the information they need faster.

Server rules, event announcements, bot help commands and channel welcome messages all benefit from consistent formatting.

Markdown in embeds and bot messages

The same syntax works inside embed fields, webhook messages and bot responses. Bots often build formatted output with bold labels and inline code, which makes data like usernames, IDs and command names stand out in a wall of text.