Discord has been testing the feature out on Twitter for the last few months or so, but was finally ready to launch its new "threads" feature yesterday. Threads has been a highly-requested update to the chat server, with its community of users looking for a way to make conversations in bustling servers easier to follow.

Any server with "community" features enabled will be able to transform messages into threaded conversations on both mobile and desktop. Threads can be designated with their own subject name, which makes it way easier to compartmentalize an off-topic idea (that might pop up as an aside remark in a bigger conversation) into its own mini-conversation.

Members of the channel can create a thread by selecting a new hashtag symbol that will appear in the contextual menu when hovering over messages or pressing the plus-sign in the chat bar and choosing "create thread." All servers will have this feature enabled by August 17, 2021.

A sample of a Discord thread. Image courtesy of Discord's blog.

A representative for Discord, Nelly, wrote in a blog post on the company's website that "we wanted to help communities stay engaged while avoiding having to shut down conversation to maintain organization." Last Fall, Discord introduced the "replies" feature, which helped a great deal with this problem, but now threads are going to take that a step further. 

"From positive feedback, this seemed to be a step in the right direction," Nelly writes. "but a problem emerges as soon as people begin replying to each other in a chain. Keeping up with the back-and-forth @s can get overwhelming, both for the people having the conversation and for those trying to follow up later. That's why today, we're excited to introduce a new home for all of those winding discussions happening in your communities: Threads!"

Threads will auto-archive after 24 hours of inactivity, which is a nice way to keep channels from becoming too clogged up by off-topic or time-sensitive discussions. Boosted servers can keep a thread around for a week instead of just a day, which will give a channel's members more time to hop into relevant side-conversations.

Boosted Discord servers receive some additional benefits within the Threads feature as well, all of which are discussed in Nelly's blog post. Moderators in a server will be able to designate who can create threads within a channel, and channel members can be given permission to create threads or use private threads, or just be allowed to use public threads. 

My friends and I go on excitable tangents a lot in my server, so I'm personally looking very forward to this update because I think that threads will really help us participate in more conversations that are happening all around us. What about you - do you use Discord, and are you pumped for the Threads feature? Share your thoughts with me!