Today, Discord announced that text chats will be added to voice channels. While on a voice call, you no longer have to worry about your text message being transmitted to the wrong text channel on your Discord server.
The new functionality is similar to text chats found on video conferencing platforms like Google Meet and Zoom. Previously, if you wanted to send a message while in a Discord audio conversation, you had to go out of your way to message one or more people on Discord DMs, open a new text channel, or share the message in a Discord server’s text channel. In other cases, you may have sent the message using a different messaging platform, such as Twitter or WhatsApp.
When you enter a Voice channel, a new Chat bubble icon appears, which opens the text chat, as shown in the gif below. A little preview will appear in the top right-hand corner of the app whenever someone submits a chat message in the Voice channel. Messages sent in a Voice chat channel, according to Discord, will remain there long after the call has ended.
In addition, a new category in the Voice Chat permissions will be added, allowing you to control what users can do in the voice channel chat, such as allowing users to attach files, embed links, and add reactions.
Each Voice channel will have its own text chat, according to Discord’s press release; those in that specific Voice channel will be able to send text messages, such as sending a link to a funny YouTube video or someone who had to mute their mic for whatever reason will be able to communicate with others on the call.
Voice channel chat is free for all Discord users, and the service will be rolled out starting today, according to Discord. By June 29th, all servers, including Community servers, will have access to Voice channel chat.