Discord Alt Account: What It Means and How Servers Handle Them

Harmless and harmful alts

Plenty of people keep separate accounts for good reasons: one for gaming, one for work, one for a community they want kept apart. Discord allows more than one account per person.

The trouble starts when an alt is used to avoid consequences. A member who was banned for harassment comes back under a new name. Someone enters a giveaway several times. A raid uses many fresh accounts to flood a channel. Servers care about the second group, not the first.

What you can see, and what you cannot

Discord does not show moderators a link between accounts, and it should not. IP addresses are private. You can only act on what is public: how old the account is, whether it still has the default avatar, whether the name looks very close to a banned user's, and how the account behaves after joining.

Be careful with guesses. A new account is not proof of an alt, and accusing the wrong person drives out real members. Do not try to dig up someone's other accounts outside Discord. Stick to the tools Discord provides.

Defenses that do not need guessing

• Account age gates: a minimum age before a new member can post.
• Verification: a gate such as a button or a question, see verification bot.
• Ban evidence: keep notes on why someone was banned so a name match can be reviewed by a human.
• Entry limits for giveaways: role or activity requirements make multiple entries pointless, see giveaway bot.

How Noxyr checks for alts

Noxyr's protection module has an alt account check. It looks at account age, set to 7 days by default, the default avatar, and names close to someone banned in your server. It uses public information only, never IP addresses. Like all protection rules it starts off, and the ones that might hit a real person alert staff first until you choose a stronger action. Set it with /security alts or on the Protection page. The details are in the protection docs.

The server logs also record how old an account is when a member joins, see server logs, which helps a moderator decide quickly. For waves of fake accounts, see raids.