For developers · 3 min read
Gateway intents are not permissions
Two separate systems that are often confused.
Intents decide which events Discord sends to your bot over the gateway. Permissions decide what your bot is allowed to do in a server. Neither one grants the other.
- Not receiving messages? That is usually the Message Content or Guild Messages intent, not a permission.
- Getting 'Missing Access' or 'Missing Permissions' (50001 / 50013)? That is a permission or overwrite.
- Privileged intents (Presence, Server Members, Message Content) are enabled in the Developer Portal, and need approval once a bot is in 100+ servers.
Administrator does not fix intents
A common mistake is adding Administrator to 'fix' a bot that is not receiving events. It changes nothing about the events you receive.