When you see a phone icon beside someone's profile picture in your Friends list on Discord, it indicates that the person is using the Discord app on their mobile phone. At the same time, a green phone icon means they are online, a yellow one means they are idle, and a red one means they have turned on Do Not Disturb mode.
Discord is a great place to text, voice chat, and have fun with your friends. To get the best out of the platform, it's ideal to understand it as much as possible. The first time I saw the phone icon beside my friend's profile picture, I was confused, but now that I know what it means, it has improved my experience on Discord.
If like me, you too want to have your doubts cleared on Discord's phone icon, then you've come to the right place. Let's get right to it.
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If you're using Discord and you see a little cell phone icon beside someone's profile photo, you might be confused as to what that means.
You'll typically see a plain green circle in the same spot when a person is online, but what does the phone icon mean?
Simply put, this phone icon is called the "mobile presence" function. It means that a particular user is accessing Discord from the mobile app and not the desktop platform.
I find this to be useful because it can give me an idea of if a friend is on the go or whether they are at home. This can be useful if you're looking for a friend to hop on a game with.
Understanding what the phone icon means on Discord is easy enough, but that's just one part of it. This icon can come in different colors, which all provide additional information.
When the phone icon you see is green, it means that a particular user is not only using Discord from their phone, but they are currently online.
This works the exact same as the normal green dot you'll see when a pal on your Discord server is online.
If the phone icon is yellow, it shows that a user is using Discord on their Android or iPhone, but they are currently idle.
Typically, anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes of no activity will change a green phone icon to a yellow one.
An idle status usually indicates to me that the person behind that Discord account has stepped away from their computer in the meantime.
If you send messages to a user, don't be surprised if they don't answer right away. They are likely to be away from their PC.
If you see a red phone icon beside a user display photo, it lets you know that the person is currently in Do Not Disturb mode on their smartphone.
This setting will block notifications from getting to your phone. This is great when you don't want to be disturbed for a period.
This means that messages anyone sends, including all notifications from your Discord server list, won't get to your phone until the Do Not Disturb mode is turned off.
But what does the phone icon mean on Discord when it looks more like a telephone emoji than the solid-colored smartphone icon that Discord puts?
Well, if you see what looks like an actual phone emoji and it is under the person's name instead of overlapping part of the profile photo, it is likely because the person you're looking at has a custom status enabled.
These allow you to attach a custom message to your Discord status, which I think is very cool.
If you see a phone emoji, look at the attached message. Most users would use something like that to indicate that they're currently on a call.
For this kind of person, it's a good idea to text instead of call just so you don't interrupt anything.
Note that you can check out a person's status by looking at the user list in a server or clicking a person's username.
If you want to set a status of your own on Discord, you only need to follow a few basic steps.
Here's how you do it on an Android device:
If you use an iOS phone, you're going to need to go through an entirely different process for this:
If you see a phone icon beside a friend's icon on Discord, it indicates that the user is using Discord from its mobile app at the moment. The colors of the phone icon also tell a story: green means they are online, yellow means that they have been idle on the platform for a few minutes, and red means that they have Do Not Disturb enabled.
However, if you see what looks like a telephone emoji and not the regular phone icon, you're probably looking at a custom status. This is a specialized message that you can make yourself and put under your profile tag on social media.
Was this article able to help you figure out the different things that the phone icon means when you're using Discord? If so, take a look at our related articles where you can learn how to do a whole lot more.
