Discord Soundboard: How to Use, Add and Manage Sounds

The Discord Soundboard lets you play short audio clips that everyone in your voice channel hears, opened from the confetti icon in a voice call on desktop or the Soundboard button in the mobile call toolbar. Anyone with permission can play a server's sounds inside that server for free, while Nitro adds cross-server sounds and entrance sounds, and custom uploads are MP3 clips of up to five seconds added from desktop or the browser.

We checked this against Discord's Soundboard Guide in the Help Center, Discord's May 2025 blog post on adding sounds, and its Account and Server Caps article, in November 2026.

What the Soundboard Does

Discord describes the Soundboard as a voice channel feature for reacting with brief audio clips. Much like emoji reactions in text chat, it is meant for quick responses during a conversation or while someone is streaming with Go Live: a golf clap for a clutch play, a sad horn for a missed shot.

Every account starts with a small built-in set. Discord's blog lists six default sounds available to everyone: Quack, Airhorn, Cricket, Golf Clap, Sad Horn and Da Bum Diss. Servers then add their own custom sounds on top, stored with the server in the same way as emoji and stickers.

A few basics shape how it feels in practice:

• A sound you play is heard by everyone in the same voice channel.
• Members who are deafened do not hear sounds played in the channel.
• Discord's blog says the Soundboard works in any server where you have permission, and in DM and group DM calls too.
• When a sound plays, its linked emoji appears on screen as a visual cue.

Playing Sounds on Desktop and Mobile

On the desktop app or in a browser, join a voice channel first. If the Soundboard is enabled for that channel, a confetti icon appears at the bottom right of the call view; there is also a Soundboard icon at the bottom left of the app. Open it, hover over a sound and press the Play icon. Press the star to add a sound to your favorites, or the speaker icon to preview it so only you hear it.

On iPhone or Android, join a voice channel, tap the screen to reveal the toolbar at the bottom, drag the toolbar upward and tap Soundboard at the top of the menu. You will see a list of servers and their sounds; tap one to play it. To favorite a sound on mobile, long-press it and choose Add to Favorites. Discord's blog notes that favorites are pinned to the top of your list and sync across platforms.

PC gamers get one extra shortcut. Discord's Help Center says that on Windows only, pressing CTRL and the backtick key opens the Soundboard from the in-game overlay, so you can fire off a clip without alt-tabbing out of a match.

Free Versus Nitro: Who Can Use What

The biggest source of confusion is which sounds you can reach without paying. Discord's FAQ draws the line clearly: you do not need Nitro to use the Soundboard within the server itself, but you do need an active Nitro subscription to use Soundboard sounds across servers.

In practice that means a free account in a server with a great custom collection can play every one of those sounds there, but cannot carry them into a different server's voice channel. A Nitro member, according to Discord's blog, can use all the sounds they have access to in any server or DM call.

Nitro also unlocks entrance sounds, a sound that plays automatically when you join a voice channel. To set one:

1. Open User Settings and go to Voice & Video, then the Soundboard section.
2. Under Sound Effects, press the pencil icon to set one sound for all servers.
3. To customize a single server, pick it from the dropdown, press the pencil and choose a sound.
4. Close the panel with the X in the top right; it saves automatically.

Discord notes that your entrance sound still plays if you join with your mic muted, but not if you join deafened. Whether these perks justify the subscription is a bigger question, covered in our guide on whether Discord Nitro is worth it.

Uploading Custom Sounds

Custom sounds are where a server's personality comes from, but uploading has strict limits. Discord's Help Center says you can only upload to the Soundboard through the desktop app or the browser, not the mobile app.

• Where: press Add Sound in the open Soundboard panel, or go to Server Settings, then Soundboard, and press Upload Sound.
• File type: MP3.
• Size: up to 512 KB.
• Length: up to five seconds.
• Emoji: required. Each sound needs a related emoji, which can be a default or custom one.
• Volume: optional default playback volume.
• Permission: your role needs Create Expressions to add sounds.

Trim clips before uploading; five seconds goes by fast, and the punchline should land in the first second. Discord also reminds uploaders that it is their responsibility to make sure sounds follow its Terms of Service and Community Guidelines and do not infringe anyone's intellectual property, so ripping long stretches of copyrighted music is a bad idea even if it fits the limit.

A few habits make a server's collection better for everyone:

• Normalize volume before you upload. A clip that is much louder than the rest will make people reach for the mute slider. The optional default volume setting helps, but a level file is better.
• Cut the silence. Leading silence makes a sound feel late, which kills the joke in a fast conversation.
• Pick a clear emoji. Because an emoji appears whenever a sound plays, matching it to the clip helps people recognize sounds at a glance.
• Name sounds plainly. Members scroll the list mid-call, so a short, obvious name beats an inside joke nobody can find.
• Rotate rather than hoard. With limited slots, retire sounds nobody uses so new ones have room.
• Agree on house rules. A short note in your rules channel about when sounds are welcome saves arguments later.

Sound Slots and Server Boost Levels

How many custom sounds a server can hold depends on its Server Boost level. Discord's Soundboard guide and its caps article give the same numbers:

• No boost level: 8 sound slots.
• Level 1: 24 slots.
• Level 2: 36 slots.
• Level 3: 48 slots.

Slots unlock with the boost level, so a server that loses boosts and drops a level has fewer slots to work with. If your server is close to full, our guide to Discord server boost levels lists everything else each level unlocks, from emoji slots to audio quality. Planning a new server around voice hangouts? A template can give you the channel layout in seconds, and our explainer on Discord server templates explains what carries over: channels, roles and permissions, but not your uploaded sounds, which you add fresh.

Managing the Soundboard as a Server Admin

Admins have three permissions to work with, and Discord's guide explains each one.

• Use Soundboard: controls who can play sounds. Toggle it per role in Server Settings, Roles, or per voice channel under Edit Channel, Permissions. Discord's blog also mentions a Use External Sounds permission that governs sounds brought in from other servers.
• Create Expressions: lets a role add custom sounds.
• Manage Expressions: lets a role edit or remove custom sounds. To delete one, go to Server Settings, Soundboard and press the X next to it.

A common setup is to allow sounds in casual voice channels and switch Use Soundboard off in channels meant for study sessions, events or competitive play. Console players in the channel hear the same clips as everyone else, and our guides to Discord on PS5 and Discord on Xbox explain the audio controls their consoles offer.

Turning Sounds Down or Off for Yourself

If the airhorn gets old, you do not need to leave the call. Go to User Settings, then Voice & Video, then Soundboard, and drag the Soundboard Volume slider. Discord says the setting syncs across all your devices, and at 0 percent you will not hear any sounds. The blog adds that emoji still appear on screen when someone plays a sound, so you can tell it happened even with the volume off.

Your own slider only affects what you hear. If a whole channel needs to be quieter, for example during a study session or a stream, ask an admin to switch off the Use Soundboard permission for that voice channel instead of asking everyone to adjust their settings one by one.

Sounds that cut out or fail to play for everyone at once may point to a wider voice issue rather than a setting. Our guide on whether Discord is down right now shows how to check the voice component on Discord's status page.

Giving Your Voice Hangouts a Fresh Start

Soundboard sounds live in servers, not accounts, so any account can play them where it has permission. If you have wondered about older accounts with long histories, the store's Discord hub features account listings from marketplace sellers that change every day. Discord's Terms of Service state that users may not license, sell, lend or transfer an account, username or other unique identifier unless Discord has given prior written approval, so read those terms first.

Frequently Asked Questions