Is Discord's Upload Limit 10MB or 20MB? Both Are Official

Discord's upload limit for free accounts is 20MB. The reason you keep finding 10MB is not that blogs are out of date — it is that Discord's own help centre currently states both numbers, on three different pages that carry different "Updated" stamps.

That is the whole answer to this question, and it is worth seeing the actual wording rather than taking anyone's summary of it. Below are the three pages side by side, with what each one says and when each one says it was last updated.

The three official pages, side by side

The File Attachments FAQ is the newest of the three, and it is the only one that addresses the discrepancy head on. Under "Why did Discord's file upload limit change?" it states:

"As of August 2026, the free upload limit is 20MB (up from 10MB), and we've aligned how that limit is checked on desktop and mobile so it's consistent and predictable."

That sentence does two jobs. It gives the current number, and it explains why the older number is still floating around: 10MB was correct, until August 2026.

The Account Caps article carries the stale figure in two separate tables. Its account-level row is the one quoted above; its server-level row reads:

Upload	10MB	Same	50MB for all members	100MB for all members

Same 10MB for the base case. Note that the article defines its own shorthand — "Same means the limit is identical to the Base tier, and N/A means that feature isn't available for that tier" — which is worth remembering for the Boost section further down.

Which one should you trust? The newest page, for the plain reason that it is the only one that says what changed and when. If you are quoting a limit to someone, quote the File Attachments FAQ and link it.

The limits, at a glance

Two conditions ride along with that table.

Nitro Classic cannot be bought. Discord's Nitro article says: "At this moment, you can only subscribe to Nitro and Nitro Basic. Nitro Classic is not available for purchase." Existing subscribers kept it; nobody new gets it.

These numbers are under active experiment. At the top of the File Attachments FAQ, Discord states: "Important: We're currently experimenting with various file upload size limits. Select users may have the ability to upload larger file sizes." So if someone in your server pushes through a file bigger than their tier allows, that is not evidence the published number is wrong — and it is not something your own account can rely on.

Why the change matters more than the number

The same FAQ entry that announced 20MB also changed when the measurement happens, and that part has a bigger practical effect than the extra 10MB. In Discord's words:

"Previously on mobile, we'd try to compress your file first and only tell you afterward if it was still too large, so the limit you saw didn't always match what actually applied. We've now moved mobile to the same pre-compression check that desktop has always used, so the number you see is the number that counts."

Discord then spells out the consequence, and it is genuinely counterintuitive:

"because we now check file size before compression rather than after, the real-world effect varies by platform. Desktop and iOS users should generally find uploads easier than before. On Android, where source files tend to be larger, you may hit the size limit more often than you did previously, even though the stated number is higher."

Read carefully: Android does not have a lower cap. The cap is the same 20MB. What changed is that the size being judged is now your untouched source file, and Android source files tend to be bigger. That is enough to make the limit feel tighter on Android despite doubling. There is more on that split in Discord's upload limit on Android vs desktop.

The operational takeaway follows directly from Discord's own sentence: since the check runs before compression, nothing Discord does to your file can rescue an oversized upload. The file you hand it is the file that gets measured.

What to do when you are over the cap

Shrink the source before Discord ever sees it.

If you would rather set the knobs yourself instead of taking a preset, the full compressor exposes resolution and target size directly.

One codec note while you are re-encoding: the File Attachments FAQ lists the common accepted types, and for video it is specific — MP4 (Video encoded with H264, HEVC/H265, or AV1). Discord presents that as "the most common examples" rather than a complete whitelist, so treat it as guidance, not a closed list.

Things that move the number up

Three published mechanisms raise the limit above the 20MB free-account default.

Server Boost levels. Discord's Server Boosting FAQ lists "50MB Upload Limit for all members (server only)" at Level 2 (7 Boosts) and "100MB Upload Limit for all members (server only)" at Level 3 (14 Boosts). Both parentheticals matter: for all members means members do not need Nitro themselves, and server only means the raised cap applies inside that server and nowhere else. Level 1 (2 Boosts) does not raise uploads at all — the Account Caps table marks it "Same". Details in the Server Boost upload limit breakdown.

A Boost experiment. The same FAQ notes: "Important: We're currently running an experiment that gives some servers the option to upgrade the file limit to 250MB by purchasing Larger File Uploads (5 Boosts) with Server Boosts." Some servers, experimentally — not a tier you can count on.

Your own subscription, per the table above. And when both your tier and the server's tier apply, they do not add. Discord's developer reference states: "The default limit is 20 MiB for all users, but may be higher for users depending on their Nitro status or by the server's Boost Tier. The attachment_size_limit value provided when working with interactions is calculated as the maximum of these values." Maximum, not sum — see the Nitro limit explainer for what that means in practice.

That developer reference also settles a detail the help centre leaves fuzzy: the limit "applies to each file in a request," so it is per file, not per message. And it writes the free default as 20 MiB, where the help centre writes 20MB. Discord does not publish a conversion between the two, so do not build a plan around the difference.

FAQ

Is Discord's upload limit 10MB or 20MB? 20MB for free accounts. Discord's File Attachments FAQ says "As of August 2026, the free upload limit is 20MB (up from 10MB)." The 10MB figure still appears in Discord's Account Caps article and in a heading on its Nitro article, both of which report older update dates.

Why does Discord's own help centre still say 10MB? Because the three pages carry different "Updated" stamps — 1 month, 2 months and 6 months at the time of writing. The newest one is the one that documents the change. Check the official documentation before quoting any of these numbers, since they have moved once already.

Did the limit go up for everyone? The published free-tier number applies to non-Nitro accounts generally, but Discord also states it is "currently experimenting with various file upload size limits" and that "select users may have the ability to upload larger file sizes." Which users, and for how long, is not stated.

Why do I still get rejected at under 20MB on Android? Check the size of the original file on disk rather than the compressed version: Discord now measures your source file before compression, and says Android users "may hit the size limit more often than you did previously" for that reason.

Does a Server Boost raise my limit everywhere? No. Discord's wording is "for all members (server only)" — the raised cap applies inside the boosted server, not in DMs or other servers.

Is 20MB per file or per message? Per file. Discord's developer reference states the limit "applies to each file in a request."

Quotes checked against Discord's File Attachments FAQ, Nitro article, Account Caps article and Server Boosting FAQ on 16 September 2026. More size-limit breakdowns in the limits hub, and the browser-side toolkit at all Clapr tools.