Many people, including me, use Discord to share important documents, videos, and images with their friends and family.
But you can only send up to 8 MegaBytes of file on Discord. 8 MB file size limitation is not enough for most people.
If you take a picture and record a video with the latest iPhone, it will easily be above 8 MB.
What is the Maximum Size Limit on Discord?
The maximum size limit for regular Discord users is 8 MB. With Discord Nitro subscription, it will increase the size limit up to 500 MB.
If you share a file larger than 8 MB, you will get a notification saying, “Your Files are too Powerful. The max file size is 8 MB. Upgrade to Discord Nitro to upload files up to 500 MB.”
Why Discord Limits the Maximum File Size You Can Upload?
Discord limits the maximum file size a user can upload to prevent spam and unnecessary files flood the Discord server. The limitation also exists to promote Discord Nitro, which lets you send larger files on any server you joined to
Millions of people share files using Discord every day. If there is no file size limitation, the storage and server costs will be too expensive for Discord company to bear
Check out our guide on How to Link Your Twitch channel to Discord
How to Bypass Discord File Size Limit
According to Discord Term of Service, you can share any file from documents, photos, videos, compressed folders, and Program files as long it’s not above 8 MB
There are many ways to share a file larger than 8 MB on Discord. I will thoroughly explain various methods on how to get around the Discord file size limit
1. Compress Image To Reduce the File Size
Compressing your Image can help reduce the file size by more than 70%. The image quality of the compressed image will be almost 99% the same as the original one.
Technically, you can upload an image with an original size of up to 56 MB after you compress the image.
Besides reducing the file size, compressing images will delete unnecessary tracing data that can harm your privacy.
If someone else shares your image, no one on the Discord server will know that you originally uploaded the image
Follow these steps to compress your image
- Open your Web Browser
- Open this website: tinyjpg.com
- Click the “Drop Your WebP, PNG, JPEG files here” box
- Choose a file and click Open
- Wait until the compression end
- Click the “Download” button to download the compressed image
- Upload your compressed image on Discord
2. Compress Video To Reduce the File Size
You can compress your video using a free video compression website.
Beware that compressing video will reduce the video quality and resolution. Compressed video will look blurry to other people
Follow these steps to compress your video
- Open your Web Browser
- Open https://www.freeconvert.com/video-compressor and click “Choose File”
- On the “Advanced settings” menu, adjust the Target size percentage until the file size is below 8MB. For example, If your image is 16 MB, then adjust it to 50%
- Click the “Compress Now” Button
- Wait until the compression end
- Click the “Download Videos” button to download the compressed video
After compressing the large video files, you can send the video on Discord
3. Use Imgur to share your image and video
Imgur is a popular website for sharing your image and video. You can store up to 200 MB in size for free on Imgur
Discord will directly embed your Imgur link. Posting your Imgur link on Discord will automatically show the image or video without opening the link.
Follow these steps to create an Imgur account and share the files on Discord through Imgur:
- Open your Web Browser
- Open this website: imgur.com
- Click Sign Up on the top right corner of the screen
- You can choose to sign up using Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google Accounts to create your account on Imgur
- After creating an account, click New Post Button
- Choose a photo or video file
- Click the Grab Link button and copy the link
- Paste the link on Discord
4. Use Google Drive to Share Your File
Google Drive lets you save your files on your Google account.
Here are the steps to save files on Google Drive and share it on Discord:
- Open your Web Browser
- Go to Google Drive using Google search or using this link: https://www.google.com/drive/
- Log in with your Google account
- Click the +New button and choose “File Upload” to upload a file to Google Drive. You can choose “Folder Upload” to share all files in one folder
- Click Enter or “Open”
- Wait until the upload process ended
- Right-click your files on Google Drive and click the “Get Link” button
- On General Access, Switch Restricted to Anyone with link
- Copy the Google Drive link and paste the link on Discord
Besides using Google Drive, you can use Mega or iCloud to share your files for free
5. Buy Discord Nitro Subscription
Discord Nitro subscription can increase the file size limit up to 500 MB
Besides increasing the upload file size limit, discord Nitro also provides various perks like custom emojis, two free server boosts, and animated profile avatars
Discord Nitro plan is not cheap to buy, priced at $99 a year or $10 a month. Even though you get a discount by purchasing yearly, consider carefully before buying Discord Nitro
Follow these steps to buy a Discord Nitro subscription:
- Open Discord
- Click User Settings on the bottom left corner
- On the Billing Setting section, click the “Nitro” tab
- Click “Subscribe”
- Choose between a Yearly or Monthly plan, and click “Select”
- Choose your payment type. I recommend using PayPal for safer and quicker transaction
- Follow the payment process until the end
You will get an email that tells you have successfully subscribed to Nitro
Follow our guide on how to Add Twitch Emotes on Discord Server
6. Boost a Discord Server
According to the Discord FAQ, Boosting a Discord server can increase the file size limit to all members on the server.
Boosting is basically donating to a Discord server. This option is more expensive compared to having a Discord Nitro subscription, so I don’t recommend choosing this option
Follow these steps to Boost a Discord server
- Open Discord
- Open the server you want to boost
- On the left panel, click the “ Boost this server” button
- You can see the current level of the server, and what is the next perk you will get for boosting the server
- You will need seven server boosts to get the server to level 2. Choose how much server boost you want to pay for the server, and click continue
- Select Paypal as the payment type
- Complete the transaction process until the end
You don’t need to pay for seven server boosts because other members can also boost the server.
As long the total number of server boosts is more than 7, all members on the server can share files up to 50 MB in size
If a Discord server has more than 14 server boosts, it will upgrade the server to level 3. At the level 3 server, all members on the server can share a file up to 100 MB in size
7. Join Boosted Discord Server
If you don’t want to pay for having a Nitro subscription or boosting the server, then you can consider joining a boosted Discord server
Just like I explained above, as long as the server level is 2, all members can share files up to 50 MB in size. If the server level is 3, all members can share files up to 100 MB in size.
You need to join a public server with more than seven server boosts
On the Discord app, click “Explore Public Server” and choose a popular server with more than ten thousand members. The more member a server has, the higher the level of the server will be
After finding a popular server, you can send a file with a size of up to 100 MB. You can leave the server after sharing the file
But don’t forget that other users on the same server can access and download your files. Never upload private and important files on a Discord server
Conclusion
This article explained seven methods on how to bypass Discord file size limitations. Following the steps above, we hoped our method can help you share your files on Discord without purchasing a Nitro subscription.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.