How to Inspect Element on Discord: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

Do you ever see a really cool profile picture or banner on Discord and wish you could save it? Want to pull a fun prank on your friends by editing their messages? Both of these are possible using Discord‘s inspect element feature.

Inspecting elements allows you to view and modify Discord‘s frontend code. With some basic HTML and CSS knowledge, you can dig into the app‘s underlying structure and make changes for fun or practical purposes.

In this in-depth guide, I‘ll teach you how to inspect element on Discord, step-by-step. You‘ll learn:

• What inspecting elements enables you to do on Discord
• How to open the developer tools on Windows and Mac
• Inspecting profile pictures, banners, and other images
• Editing Discord messages as a prank
• Limitations and risks of inspect element
• Creative ways to experiment with Discord‘s code

And plenty more! Whether you‘re a coding newbie or experienced web developer, this guide will take your Discord trickery to the next level.

So buckle up and let‘s dive right in!

Overview: What Does Inspect Element Allow You to Do?

Here‘s a quick rundown of the main things inspect element enables you to do on Discord:

• View and copy image URLs – Profile pictures, server icons, emojis, stickers, banners, splash arts.

• Save images and media – Download any images/media in their full resolution.

• View page source code – See the actual HTML, CSS, and JavaScript running the app.

• Edit text – Change your own or others‘ profile info, messages, channel names, etc.

• Modify styling – Colors, fonts, sizes, visibility of elements.

• See network requests – View API calls made by the app.

• Debug issues – Spot CSS/layout problems more easily.

• Deeper hacking – With coding knowledge, manipulate data and app behavior.

So as you can see, inspect element opens up a lot of possibilities beyond just editing messages for fun. It lets you poke around under the hood and better understand how Discord works.

Next, I‘ll explain how to access these developer tools on both Windows and Mac.

Accessing Developer Tools on Discord

To start inspecting elements, you first need to open the developer tools panel built into Discord. Here‘s how:

On Windows:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + I (or F12)

This keyboard shortcut will bring up the developer tools on Windows.

On Mac:

• Press Command + Option + I

That‘s the shortcut for Mac users to open developer tools.

After pressing the shortcut, you should see a panel like this:

This is Discord‘s developer tools panel. It has various tabs like Elements, Console, Sources, etc. We‘ll mainly be working in the Elements tab, as that allows you to visually inspect and edit elements on the page.

With the basics out of the way, let‘s go over some practical examples of how to use inspect element on Discord.

Inspecting and Saving Profile Pictures

One common use case is inspecting a user‘s profile picture to find the full image URL and save the profile pic locally. Here‘s how:

1. Click a user‘s profile picture or profile popup to open their profile.

2. Press Ctrl + Shift + I (Windows) or Command + Option + I (Mac) to open dev tools.

3. Click the selector tool (arrow icon).

4. Hover over the profile picture, then click to inspect it.

5. In the Elements tab, expand the <div> tags until you find the <img src=> tag.

6. Right click the image source URL and select Copy > Copy image address.

7. Paste this URL into a new browser tab and hit enter to view the full-size image.

8. Right click the image and choose Save image as to save the profile picture.

And that‘s it! By digging through the DOM tree, you can find the direct image URLs for any Discord profile pictures, server icons, emojis, banners, and other images.

Here are some more examples of profile pictures I was able to save using inspect element:

The same process applies for banners, server icons, emojis, stickers, and any other images on Discord. Just inspect the element and copy the image source to get the direct URL.

Next up, let‘s go over how to prank your friends by editing their messages using inspect element.

Editing Discord Messages as a Prank

Inspect element allows you to locally modify text on Discord as a prank on your fellow server members. Here‘s how it works:

1. Hover over a message and click the […] menu > Edit to open the edit window.

2. With the message editable, press Ctrl + Shift + I to open dev tools.

3. Click the inspector tool and select the message text.

4. Edit the message text in the Elements tab and hit Enter.

5. Click outside the edit field to save the changes.

Now it will look like your friend (or you) sent something completely different!

For example, I changed my message from "Hi" to "Pineapples go on pizza":

Of course, use this trick in good fun and be careful not to spread misinformation. Only you will see the edited messages – your changes are local and won‘t be visible to the original sender.

There are also risks involved with message editing, which I discuss later in the "Limitations & Risks" section. So tread carefully and avoid any malicious use.

Now let‘s go over some of the limitations around inspecting elements on Discord.

Limitations of Inspect Element on Discord

While inspect element grants you some powers to modify Discord locally, there are some major limitations and risks to be aware of:

• Changes only apply to you – Any edits you make are only visible on your end. Other users won‘t see your changes.

• Can get you banned – Malicious scraping of data or faking content may result in an account ban.

• Doesn‘t work on mobile – Dev tools only exist on the desktop and web versions.

• Requires coding skills – Doing more advanced modifications requires HTML, CSS, and JavaScript knowledge.

• May break app functionality – Drastic changes can likely break things or cause crashes.

• Unofficial access – These tools aren‘t officially supported by Discord.

So in summary, what you can do with inspect element is limited. The changes you make are purely local and risky if taken too far. Use good judgment.

Now let‘s move on to some creative ways you can experiment with Discord‘s code.

Getting Creative: Modifying Discord‘s Styles

With some basic HTML and CSS skills, you can tweak and play around with Discord‘s interface using inspect element. Here are a few fun experiments to try:

• Change colors – Edit colors of text, backgrounds, and other elements.

• Swap images – Replace icons and images via the src attribute.

• Modify fonts – Change fonts, sizes, styles of text components.

• Rearranging elements – Change positioning and sizing of elements.

For example, I gave my Discord client a Halloween makeover using inspect element:

I changed the overall background color, text colors, font styles, edited server icons, and swapped various images to pumpkin icons I found. Pretty festive!

Small styling changes like colors and fonts are generally harmless. But be careful when modifying elements more aggressively. Drastic changes can break Discord‘s functionality and get you banned if done excessively.

The key is to experiment lightly and not abuse inspect element privileges. Keep your pranks and tweaks within reason.

Closing Thoughts on Inspect Element for Discord

That sums up this in-depth guide on how to inspect element on Discord! Here are some key takeaways:

• Use inspect element to discover image URLs, edit messages, and lightly modify styles.

• Open developer tools with Ctrl + Shift + I on Windows or Command + Option + I on Mac.

• Find full image URLs by inspecting elements and traversing the DOM tree.

• Be responsible when pranking friends with edited chat messages.

• Avoid malicious use that violates Discord‘s ToS. Stick to minor local changes.

• Use HTML/CSS skills to lightly customize Discord‘s appearance for fun.

• Note the limitations around visibility, risk of bans, and lack of mobile support.

Inspecting Discord‘s elements opens up some neat tricks, but should be used wisely. I hope this guide was helpful for you! Let me know if you have any other questions.