Discord attachment downloader

An attachment address carries a signature and a clock

A file posted in a chat is stored on Discord's content network, and the address handed out for it is not a plain permanent link. Three extra parameters ride on the end of it: an identifier, an expiry stamp, and a signature calculated over both. The network checks all three before it serves a single byte.

The stamp is the part that matters here. It names a moment after which the signature stops being accepted. Before that moment the address serves the file to anyone who has it. After it, the same address returns a refusal, and no amount of retrying changes the answer.

Why an address that worked an hour ago fails now

This is the single most common reason a paste from this host returns nothing. The link was copied yesterday, or lifted out of an old forum post, or saved into a document last month. The file is still sitting on the network. The signature on that particular address is the thing that has run out.

You can read the expiry yourself. Look at the query string on the end of the address for the parameter holding the expiry value. That number is a timestamp, and once the moment has passed the address is spent. Editing the number by hand does nothing, because the signature was calculated over the original value and stops matching the moment you change it.

Copy the address again from the message itself

The repair is to have Discord issue a fresh address. Open the channel, scroll to the message holding the file, and copy the link again from there. The client hands out a new identifier, a new expiry, and a matching signature. Paste that fresh address into the box above and press Analyze straight away.

On the desktop client, hover the attachment and use Copy Link, or right-click the file name. On the phone app, press and hold the attachment and choose the option that copies the link. Do the paste while the address is new rather than parking it in a notes app for later.

Files somebody else posted in a server

You do not have to be the poster. Anyone who can read the channel can copy the attachment address out of the message, and that address works for our servers as well while the signature holds. Nothing about your Discord account travels with the link.

Private servers and direct messages are exactly the same in this respect. The gate is the channel, not the file. Once you have read the message and copied a current address, the content network serves the bytes to whoever presents a valid signature, which is why a fresh copy matters more than anything else on this page.

What the results list shows for an attachment

An attachment is one stored file rather than a set of encodings, so the list comes back with a single row carrying the file name and the size in megabytes. There are no quality choices to weigh up. Press Download file on that row and the same file transfers to your device.

Chat servers cap the size of what people can post, so most attachments sit comfortably inside the 150 MB limit that applies to free downloads. Free use covers three downloads a day, and Pro removes both that count and the size ceiling along with the ads. A prepared file expires on its own short timer here, so leave the tab open until the transfer finishes.

Take what the poster meant you to have

A file dropped into a channel was shared with the people in that channel. Keeping a copy of a clip a friend sent you is ordinary. Pulling somebody's work out of a private server and publishing it elsewhere is not, whatever the address happens to allow.

Vidzilla is an independent site with no connection to Discord and no view into who is permitted to read a channel. The judgement about what leaves the conversation belongs to you and to the person who posted the file.

Related pages

• The difference between a page address and a media address
• Saving a file from a MediaFire link
• Downloading a shared Dropbox file
• Collecting a WeTransfer file before it lapses
• Saving a file shared on Google Drive