You can find a Discord account's creation date in two ways: look at the account age shown on the profile, or turn on Developer Mode, copy the user ID and decode the timestamp that is built into it. The ID method gives you the exact day, hour and second the account was registered, and it works on any account you can see, not only your own. Because the date is derived from the ID rather than stored as an editable field, there is nothing in User Settings that changes it.
We checked this against Discord's Help Center articles on Developer Mode, profile badges, Profile Privacy and the server Members page, plus the Snowflake section of Discord's developer documentation, in November 2026.
What Discord Records the Moment an Account Is Made
Every user, server, channel and message on Discord has a long numeric ID that Discord's developer documentation calls a snowflake. The ID is not random. Its highest 42 bits store the number of milliseconds that passed between the Discord epoch and the moment the ID was generated, and the documentation defines that epoch as the first second of 2015, which is 1420070400000 in Unix milliseconds. The lower bits hold an internal worker ID, an internal process ID and a counter that ticks up for each ID generated on that process.
For a user account, the moment the ID was generated is the moment the account was registered. That is why the ID doubles as a birth certificate: read the timestamp portion and you have the creation date, down to the millisecond. Discord went public on May 13, 2015, so any real user ID you decode should land on a date from mid-2015 onward. If a screenshot or a listing claims an account is older than that, the claim is wrong before you even check it.
| Field | Bits | What it stores |
|---|---|---|
| Timestamp | 63 to 22 (42 bits) | Milliseconds since the Discord epoch, the first second of 2015 |
| Internal worker ID | 21 to 17 (5 bits) | Which worker generated the ID |
| Internal process ID | 16 to 12 (5 bits) | Which process on that worker generated it |
| Increment | 11 to 0 (12 bits) | A counter that rises for every ID generated on that process |
Method 1: Read the Account Age on the Profile
The quickest check needs no settings at all. Open the person's profile from a server member list or a DM and look for the account age details. Discord treats this information as basic identity data: its Profile Privacy article lists account age among the things that stay visible even when someone sets their profile to Friends Only, alongside the avatar, banner, display name, username, server tag and mutual friends and servers. Badges, bio, pronouns and connected accounts are hidden by that setting, but account age is not.
The second profile clue is the Account Age badge, described in Discord's profile badge article (last updated in October 2026). It unlocks once an account is a year old and then evolves as the account gets older. Discord says that once you reach a level you keep it and never drop back. Each badge also carries a rarity tier of Common, Rare, Epic or Mythic, and each level of an evolving badge can have its own rarity, so a very old account's Account Age badge may sit in a rarer tier than a two-year-old one.
The limitation is precision. The profile and badge tell you roughly how old an account is, but if you need the exact registration time, for a giveaway rule, a moderation decision or just curiosity, the ID is the source of truth.
Method 2: Turn On Developer Mode and Copy the User ID
Copy options for IDs only appear after Developer Mode is switched on. Discord's own article on finding IDs gives these steps, and they take under a minute.
- On desktop or browser, select the cogwheel in the bottom left to open User Settings, go to Advanced, and turn on the Developer Mode toggle.
- On mobile, tap your avatar in the bottom right, tap the cogwheel in the top right, scroll to Advanced under App Settings, and turn on Developer Mode.
- To copy someone's ID on desktop, right-click their name in a server, group chat or DM and choose Copy User ID.
- On mobile, tap the user, tap the ellipsis in the top right of their profile, then tap Copy User ID.
To get your own ID, right-click your own name in any member list or DM on desktop, or tap your own profile on mobile and use the same menu. The same toggle also unlocks Copy Server ID, Copy Channel ID and Copy Message Link, which is handy because every one of those IDs is a snowflake too. Decode a server ID and you learn when the server was created; decode a message ID and you get the exact send time, even if the client shows only "Today" or a date.
Discord notes that its Support team may ask for these numbers when you open a ticket, so leaving Developer Mode on costs nothing. It adds a few menu items and changes nothing about how your account behaves.
Method 3: Decode the ID Into a Date
The documentation gives the formula as the ID shifted right by 22 bits, plus 1420070400000. Shifting right by 22 bits simply throws away the worker, process and increment fields, leaving the timestamp. If you are doing it by hand, the equivalent is to divide the ID by 4,194,304 (which is 2 to the power of 22), drop everything after the decimal point, then add 1,420,070,400,000. The result is a Unix time in milliseconds.
Here is a worked example with the ID 175928847299117063:
- 175928847299117063 divided by 4,194,304 is 41,944,705,796 once the decimals are dropped.
- Adding 1,420,070,400,000 gives 1,462,015,105,796 milliseconds.
- Converted to a calendar date, that is April 30, 2016 at 11:18:25 UTC.
Two practical warnings. First, the answer is in UTC, so someone in New York would see that account as created on the morning of April 30 local time, while someone in Sydney would see the evening. Second, user IDs are 17 to 19 digits long, and many spreadsheet apps and basic calculators quietly round numbers that size, which shifts the result by minutes or even days. A programming calculator, or one line in your browser's developer console such as new Date(Number(BigInt("175928847299117063") >> 22n) + 1420070400000), keeps every digit intact.
Plenty of websites will do this conversion if you paste an ID in. The math is simple enough that you never need to give a site anything more than the public ID itself. If a "creation date checker" asks you to log in with Discord, paste anything from your browser's storage, or install an extension, close it. An ID is public; nothing beyond it is needed to read a date.
Method 4 for Server Moderators: The Members Page
If you run or moderate a server, Discord already decodes account ages for you. The Members page, which Discord describes as a dashboard for new and existing members, shows when each person joined the server and the age of their Discord account. You can sort by Joined Discord (Newest first or Oldest first) and filter for accounts that joined Discord within a specific timeframe.
- Community servers reach it from Members near the top of the channel list; non-Community servers find it under Server Settings, then User Management, then Members.
- You need to be the owner or hold a permission such as Administrator, Manage Server, Manage Roles, Manage Nicknames, Kick Members, Ban Members or Timeout Members.
- It is available on desktop and browser only, not in the mobile app.
Sorting by Joined Discord, newest first, is one of the fastest ways to spot a wave of brand-new accounts during a raid. Pair it with your server's Verification Level, which can require members to have a verified phone number; our guide to Discord phone verification explains how those levels interact.
Why the Date Matters, and What It Cannot Tell You
Account age has had real consequences on Discord. When the platform replaced the old name#0000 tags with unique usernames, it opened the change to users in order of account age, starting with accounts from 2015, which is part of why early accounts held on to short handles. Older accounts that kept their original tag can still show the Legacy Username badge. For the background on short and early names, see our explainer on Discord OG usernames.
The date also has limits worth knowing:
- It records when the account was created, nothing more. It does not show past Nitro purchases, which is a separate story told by badges such as the one in our Early Supporter badge guide.
- It cannot be moved. The timestamp is part of the ID, so a new email, a new username or a new avatar leaves it exactly where it was.
- Old does not mean permanent. Discord says accounts that have not been used for two years or more may be scheduled for deletion, usually with an email or text warning first, and logging in cancels it.
- A new account that fails to verify its email gets five random digits added to its username seven days after creation, according to Discord's username article.
Age is also exactly why old accounts get targeted. An account from 2015 or 2016 cannot be replaced, so protecting it matters more than protecting a fresh one. Turn on multi-factor authentication using our Discord 2FA guide, and keep our hacked account recovery steps bookmarked in case something goes wrong.
If an Older Account Is What You Are After
Some people searching for creation dates are really asking a different question: whether they can have an older account than the one they made. Since the date cannot be edited, the store's Discord section lists accounts from marketplace sellers instead, including aged accounts registered between 2015 and 2018, some with three or four letter usernames, Nitro or badges, and email or phone verification. Listings and details change daily, so check each one, and decode the ID yourself with the method above rather than trusting a screenshot. Before considering any of them, know that Discord's Terms of Service bar users from licensing, selling, lending or transferring an account unless Discord has given prior written approval.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I see when my Discord account was created?
Turn on Developer Mode in User Settings under Advanced, right-click your own name and choose Copy User ID, then decode it by shifting it right 22 bits and adding 1420070400000. The result is your creation time in Unix milliseconds, in UTC.
Can I change my Discord account creation date?
No. The date is encoded in the account's user ID, which is generated at sign-up. Changing your username, email, display name or avatar does not affect it.
Can I check someone else's Discord account age?
Yes. Account age is visible on profiles even when Profile Privacy is set to Friends Only, and with Developer Mode on you can copy any user's ID and decode it the same way you would your own.
What is the oldest possible Discord account date?
The Discord epoch is the first second of 2015, and the service launched publicly on May 13, 2015. Real user accounts therefore date from 2015 onward.
When do you get the Discord Account Age badge?
Discord says it unlocks once an account is a year old and evolves as the account gets older. You keep each level once reached.
Why does my decoded date look a day off?
The decoded time is in UTC, so it can fall on a different calendar day in your time zone. Rounding is the other common cause: use a tool that handles big integers instead of a spreadsheet.