Discord has introduced Clips that let you save short highlights from your streams and even screen shares. Whether you’re showing off a brilliant gameplay move or something funny happens during a voice chat, Clips lets you grab those moments and share them easily with your friends. Here’s how to use Discord Clips.
Table of Contents
What’s Discord Clips
Let’s say you’re streaming gameplay or sharing your screen during a Discord video chat. Suddenly, something exciting happens that’s worth saving and sharing. You can now easily capture and save it natively using Discord Clips. Just click on the Clips icon, and the last 2 minutes (by default) will be saved as a clip immediately.
Have you used Twitch before? Discord clips are somewhat similar to Twitch clips but differ in two key ways:
- only the person who is streaming or screen sharing can save the clip. As a viewer, you can’t create clips from someone else’s broadcast on Discord.
- Discord clips are saved locally as MP4 files, giving you more control over what you can do with them like editing, sharing on a different platform, and more.
Limitations of Discord Clips
However, there are some limitations to using Discord Clips:
- Discord Clips is still in the beta phase and may have some glitches.
- Clips is currently only available to Discord Nitro users which is not free. So you need to subscribe to Discord Nitro or use these tricks to get Discord Nitro for free.
- Discord Clips is only available on Discord’s Windows app. It’s not yet available on the web, macOS, or mobile versions.
- The feature is disabled by default, so you need to enable it before starting a video chat to save clips.
- You’ll need fairly beefy hardware (like an Nvidia GTX 980 or better) to use this feature effectively. When you enable Clips, Discord needs to constantly track your stream so that when you click the Clips icon, it can instantly save the last moment. If your PC doesn’t meet the minimum hardware requirements, you may experience performance issues like lag or stuttering.
That being said, here’s how you can enable the Discord Clips feature, customize it to your needs, create a clip while streaming, edit it, share it, or even delete the clips.
How to Enable and Customize Discord Clips
Before you can start capturing your favorite moments with Discord Clips, you’ll need to enable the feature. This will apply to all your future streams. As mentioned, Clips are resource-intensive and may cause lag on low-powered PCs.
- Open Discord and click on the User Settings icon (the gear next to your username).
- Scroll down and find the Clips section, then toggle Enable Clips on.
Once Clips are enabled, you can customize a few settings to suit your needs:
- Clip Length: Choose the duration of your clip (30 seconds, 1 minute, or 2 minutes).
- Resolution & Frame Rate: Set the maximum resolution (up to Source quality) and frame rate (15, 30, or 60 FPS) to control clip quality and file size.
- Keybinding: The default keyboard shortcut to capture a clip is ALT + C, but you can change this to any key combination you prefer.
- Storage Location: Choose where your clips will be saved on your PC to easily find them later.
- Hardware Encoding: If you would like to compress the videos of your clips, you can enable Hardware Encoding.
- Allow my voice to be recorded in Clips—This setting determines if your voice will be captured when someone else in your voice channel streaming saves a clip. Even people without the Nitro can find this option.
You can enable Discord’s Clips feature for selected streams too if you don’t want to enable it for all streams. When you start streaming or screen sharing, you get to customize your stream settings in a pop-up window. You will find the option to Enable Clips for that particular stream there.
Creating Discord Clips
Now that your settings are configured, it’s time to start creating clips. There are two main ways to create a clip during a stream:
- Hit the Keybind: Press ALT + C (or whatever keybind you’ve set), and Discord will automatically save the last 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 2 minutes of your stream, depending on your settings.
- Click the Save Clip Icon: While streaming, look for the small Save Clip button next to your game title. Click it to capture the moment.
It’s that simple! Make sure to press the keybind or the button right after something cool happens, so you don’t miss it. Keep in mind that this feature only records the stream or screen share, not the entire video chat. However, your voice and other participants who allowed the voice to be recorded in settings will also be recorded.
Sharing Discord Clips
Once you have video files in hand, you can edit them however you like or share them on any platform you prefer. However, Discord also has a built-in option to share saved clips directly.
Open a text channel where you want to share your clip. Click the + icon near the text entry box and select Share a Clip.
You’ll see all your saved clips here. This option simply shows the clips stored locally on your device. If you’ve moved the clips to a different location or edited them, they won’t appear in this list.
Hover over the clip you want to share and click the Share button to instantly post it as a video file in that text channel.
Click the Edit button to make changes to the clip before sharing it. In the editor, you can adjust the clip length, change the title, turn stream or participant audio on or off. Once you’re happy with the edits, you can either Share the clip immediately or save your changes for future use.
In the same Clips menu, there’s also an option to delete your clip. Alternatively, you can delete the local file or move it to a different location, removing it from Discord’s Share a Clip menu.
Let’s Try Discord Clips
Discord Clips are a fantastic way to save those amazing gaming moments you want to share (or just relive) later. Whether it’s an epic victory or a funny in-game fail, Clips gives you an easy way to capture, edit, and share the highlights of your streams. So go ahead, enable Clips, and start capturing your gaming greatness today!
