Discord is growing up, so everyone needs to pick a new username

Discord is taking away the four-digit tag that it puts after its usernames as it looks to make it “easier to connect” with other users. As noted in a post on Discord’s blog, this change will force most users to change their usernames, as Discord will no longer have the four-number tag that distinguishes one person with the same username from another.

Instead of having a four-number discriminator appended to your username, you will now have a unique alphanumeric username with the “@” symbol in front of it. You’ll also get to choose a non-unique display name that can include special characters, spaces, emoji, and non-Latin characters, making the platform a lot more like other mainstream social networks, such as Twitter and Instagram. It also makes it less like the gaming platform it started life as, with suffixes similar to the ones used on services like Steam, Battle.net, and Xbox.

Unfortunately, this process means everyone on Discord will need to select a new username.

According to Discord, you can update your username gradually “in the coming weeks,” and the platform will notify you when you’re able to do so. The company says it will prioritize longtime Discord users, which means the longer you’ve been on Discord, the sooner you’ll be able to choose a new name.

Additionally, Discord notes that your previous username and discriminator will still work as an alias after it starts getting rid of the numerical tag. This means your friends can still find you under your old username.

While Discord says it initially launched with the goal of letting users choose any username they wanted, the four-number tags eventually “became technical debt” that it didn’t “address adequately,” noting that usernames are often “too complicated or obscure” to memorize and share with friends.

“We recognize that this is a big change,” Discord co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy writes in the blog post. “There may be hiccups with this process, and it may be tough to part ways with that ‘#0001’ that’s meant a lot to you over the years. We’ll be doing everything we can to manage things as smoothly as possible.”