How to Turn On Community in Your Discord Server (and Is It Worth It?)

Every Discord server starts as a plain server, fine for friends. Turning on Community unlocks a set of tools built for bigger, more public groups.

This guide explains what you get, what Discord asks for first, and whether it's right for your server.

What Community unlocks

Feature	What it does
Onboarding	Questions new members answer to get the right roles and channels
Welcome Screen	A card new members see first, recommending a few channels
Announcement channels	Posts other servers can follow, so your news reaches them too
Server Insights	Stats on growth, activity and where new members drop off
Server Discovery	A chance to be listed publicly, for servers that meet Discord's extra requirements

What Discord requires

When you turn Community on, Discord asks for a few safety settings. They're sensible for any public server:

1. A verification level of at least Low: members need a verified email address before they can talk.
2. Explicit media scanning for all members: Discord scans images and videos sent in the server.
3. A rules channel: a channel for your rules (Discord can create one).
4. A community updates channel: a private channel where Discord sends news for admins (Discord can create this too).

Discord also expects your server to follow its Community Guidelines more closely once it's public.

How to turn it on

1. Open Server Settings → Enable Community (in some versions, Community → Get Started).
2. Go through the safety checks and turn on what Discord asks for.
3. Pick your rules channel and community updates channel, or let Discord create them.
4. Agree to the guidelines and finish.

You need Administrator to turn Community on.

Is it worth it?

Turn it on if:

• your server is public or you plan to grow it
• you want Onboarding to guide new members
• you post news other communities might follow
• you want to see which channels people actually use

You might skip it if:

• it's a small, private server for friends
• you don't want image scanning or verification steps for your members

What to do right after

1. Set up Onboarding so new members aren't overwhelmed. See our Onboarding guide.
2. Turn your news channel into an announcement channel. See announcement channels explained.
3. Set up the Welcome Screen with three to five channels new members should see first.
4. Write your rules if you haven't. Our rules and welcome guide has templates.

Can you turn it off again?

Yes, in Server Settings → Community, but features that depend on it, like Onboarding and announcement channels, stop working. Plan to keep it if you rely on them.

Let Cordary do it

With Administrator, Cordary can turn Community on as part of a plan and set up what comes with it: the rules channel, the Welcome Screen and Onboarding. Note that Community stays on if you later roll the plan back, and Cordary marks this before you apply. Without Administrator, Cordary asks you to turn Community on in Discord, then picks up from there.