Ever sent a message you immediately regretted, but instead of deleting it like a coward, you wanted to show the world your mistake? That's where crossed out text Discord comes in. Most of us just call it strikethrough. It’s that thin horizontal line that runs right through the middle of your words, making it look like you’ve edited a top-secret government document or just made a really bad joke you want to disavow while still keeping it visible.
Discord uses a simplified version of Markdown. If you've used Reddit or GitHub, you're probably familiar with the vibe. But Discord’s implementation is a little picky. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about signaling. Sometimes you use it for humor. Other times, it’s for actual task management in a shared server where you need to show that the "Buy more mountain dew" task is finally, mercifully, finished.
How to actually get crossed out text Discord working
You don't need a degree in computer science. You just need the tilde key. That’s the little squiggly line ~ usually hanging out right below your Escape key on a standard US QWERTY keyboard.
To make it work, you wrap your text in double tildes. It looks like this: ~~this is my text~~. When you hit enter, Discord’s parsing engine sees those four tildes and tells the client to render the text with a line-through CSS property. Simple.
But here is where people mess it up. Space matters. If you put a space between the tildes and the first word—like ~~ this ~~—it might not work on every version of the app. Mobile users especially report that the formatting fails if the tildes aren't "hugging" the words. You've gotta be precise.
Why is it even called Markdown?
It’s a bit of a technical misnomer in the way Discord uses it. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created the original Markdown specifications back in 2004 to make writing for the web easier. Discord uses a library called "SimpleMarkdown," which is a variation. This is why some things that work in your fancy notes app (like Obsidian) don't work in a Discord chat.
Discord’s version is stripped down for speed. They don't want the chat engine lagging because it's trying to render complex nested tables or footnotes. They just want you to be able to bold, italicize, and, of course, use crossed out text Discord style to mock your friends' bad takes in the gaming channel.
The weird world of mobile vs. desktop
Have you noticed how Discord on your iPhone feels different than Discord on your PC? That’s because the codebases were historically separate. For a long time, the Android app was built on React Native while the desktop app was Electron. This led to massive "parity" issues.
Sometimes you’ll type the strikethrough code on your phone, and it looks fine to you, but your buddy on a Mac sees raw tildes. This usually happens because of "Smart Punctuation."
If you’re on an iPhone, iOS loves to turn regular dashes into "em-dashes" or change regular quotes into "curly quotes." Sometimes, it even messes with tildes if you have certain keyboard replacements active. If your crossed out text Discord isn't showing up, check if your phone is "helping" you by changing the characters. Disable smart punctuation in your keyboard settings if you’re a power user who spends all day in chat.
Advanced tricks: Combining strikethrough with other stuff
You aren't limited to just one style. You can stack them like a digital lasagna.
Want bold, italicized, and crossed out text? You can do that. You just have to nest the symbols correctly. It’s like math. Whatever you open first, you have to close last.
~~***This is a mess***~~
This will give you text that is bold, slanted, and has a line through it. It’s visually loud. Honestly, it’s a bit much for a casual conversation, but if you’re trying to express a specific type of chaotic energy in a meme channel, it’s the gold standard.
What about code blocks?
Here is a trap. If you put tildes inside a code block—those things you make with the backtick key ()—they won't work. Code blocks are designed to show "raw" text. If you type ~~help~~` inside a code block, Discord assumes you literally want to show the tildes, perhaps because you're teaching someone else how to do it.
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The same goes for "escaped" characters. If you put a backslash \ in front of your tildes, Discord ignores the formatting instructions.
Beyond the tilde: Using third-party generators
Some people want more than a simple line. They want "slash-through" or "double strikethrough." Discord doesn't support this natively.
To get those, people use Unicode generators. These sites take your text and swap the standard Latin characters for "Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" or use "Combining Diacritical Marks." Specifically, the "Combining Long Stroke Overlay" (U+0336) is what makes those weird crossed-out styles work even where Markdown isn't supported.
Be careful with these. Screen readers—the tools used by visually impaired gamers—absolutely hate Unicode text. A screen reader will try to read out every single individual Unicode character code instead of the word. If you use a generator for crossed out text Discord instead of the built-in ~~ method, you’re making your messages unreadable for a portion of the community.
Why strikethrough matters in community management
If you run a server, you know the "Changelog" channel is the heart of the community. When you're updating rules or announcing that a specific bot is offline, using crossed out text Discord is a psychological cue.
It shows history.
Instead of deleting an old rule, striking it out and putting the new rule below it shows transparency. It tells your members, "We changed this, and here is what it used to be." It builds trust. It’s much better than just ghost-editing a post and pretending the old rule never existed.
The "Joke" factor
Let’s be real. 90% of the time, we use strikethrough for the "Wait, I shouldn't have said that" joke.
- "I totally think ~~you're a noob~~ you played great today!"
- "The best pizza topping is ~~pineapple~~ pepperoni."
It’s a linguistic tool for irony. It allows you to say two things at once: the thing you're "supposed" to say and the thing you actually think. In a text-heavy environment like Discord where tone is hard to convey, these little formatting quirks act like a substitute for body language or facial expressions.
Troubleshooting: When it just won't work
So you typed the tildes. You checked the spaces. It still looks like ~~broken~~. What gives?
- Check your Role Permissions: While rare, some highly restrictive servers use bots to "clean" Markdown or have specific settings. If you’re in a "Read Only" or "Highly Regulated" channel, the hooks might be stripped.
- Discord Outages: Sometimes Discord’s "Canary" or "PTB" (Public Test Build) versions have bugs where Markdown rendering breaks. If you’re on a beta version, that’s the price of being an early adopter.
- The "Compact" View: Discord has two display modes: Cozy and Compact. While both support strikethrough, Compact view can sometimes make it harder to see the line if your font size is set too small or your "Saturation" settings are tweaked in the Accessibility menu.
- App Cache: If you're on desktop, sometimes the cache gets weird. A quick
Ctrl + Rwill refresh the Discord client and often fixes rendering glitches.
Actionable Next Steps
If you want to master Discord formatting beyond just the basics, start by experimenting with the order of operations.
First, try a simple strikethrough on a single word in a sentence. Don't do the whole paragraph; it's an eyesore. Second, if you're on mobile, go into your settings and ensure that "Auto-Punctuation" isn't turning your double-tildes into something else.
For server owners, try using strikethrough in your #rules channel next time you do an update instead of just deleting the old text. It’s a small change that makes your moderation style feel much more professional and "open source."
Lastly, remember the screen reader issue. Use the native ~~ whenever possible. It's built into the app for a reason, and it keeps your community accessible to everyone, regardless of how they "see" the chat.
Discord is constantly evolving. In the last few years, we've seen the addition of headers, masked links, and even blockquotes. But the humble crossed out text Discord shortcut remains one of the most reliable ways to add flavor to your messages. Keep it simple, keep it "hugged" by the tildes, and you'll never have a formatting fail again.