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How to cross out or strikethrough text in Discord

discord pivot away from gaming app icon on the screen smartphone
Shutterstock/Sergei Elagin

Discord text formatting allows you to customize the messages you send in different ways, from adding spoiler blocks to text you want hidden to putting something in quotes. You also have the ability to strikethrough text or make it look like the text is crossed out even if it’s still sent to your Discord friends or a particular thread.

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

People like to use strikethrough as a way to correct information that they originally posted incorrectly, to make jokes about things, and for a few other purposes. If you ever need the utility of crossed-out text, here’s how to strikethrough on Discord whenever you want.

Strikethrough your text with Markdown

Often, you want to strikethrough just a word or two while you are typing, or you may want to paste and correct some text that you wrote previously. In these situations, it’s usually easiest to use Markdown to quickly cross out text as you go. Here’s how to do this Discord text trick.

Step 1: Open Discord and choose to create whatever kind of message you want to your friends or on a specific thread. Type the text that you want.

Text in a Discord Message.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 2: Markdown supports strikethrough using double tildes, the “~” symbol (it's usually near the top left of your keyboard). Before you start typing text that you want to be crossed out, type out two tildes first. If you’ve already written the word, just go back and quickly type in the tildes.

First Tildes on Discord text.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 3: When you are finished typing the words you want crossed out, add two more tildes at the end. Once you finish this, the section will immediately be crossed out in your message box, so you can easily see what it looks like and make any corrections if you need to.

Both Tildes for Strikethrough on Discord.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 4: Enter your text message, and it will appear crossed out as before. If you are on mobile, this Markdown trick should also work as long as you can locate the tilde symbol on your mobile keyboard.

Strikethrough text sent in Discord.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Strikethrough large blocks of text

Markdown is a great choice if you’re actively typing and want to cross out just a few words, but what if you want to cross out a large section of text? This isn’t always as common, but it may be helpful if you want to correct a mistake you made earlier and show everyone that a paragraph or two no longer matters.

In this case, use your mouse or your touchscreen to highlight the block of text you want to cross out. Keep your cursor on the highlighted text, and you’ll see a small formatting menu pop up. Look for the crossed-out S symbol, the universal icon for strikethrough. Select it, and the block of text will be crossed out.

Can I remove strikethrough text after sending it?

Not really. Your best bet is to delete the message if you didn’t want strikethrough. This essentially unsends the message, and if you’re quick, no one will know that it was there. Then you can retype it and make sure the strikethrough is only where you intend it to be.

Tyler Lacoma
Former Digital Trends Contributor
If it can be streamed, voice-activated, made better with an app, or beaten by mashing buttons, Tyler's into it. When he's not…
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