Discord finally upgrades the maximum file upload size: your pet pictures have never looked so good

Good news for anyone whose camera roll is mostly pets: starting today, Discord is giving free users more room to share them by doubling the maximum file upload size.

That means non-Nitro users can now send photos, videos, PDFs, music files and other attachments up to 20MB without needing a subscription. So yes, that extremely crisp picture of your cat staring judgmentally into the camera can now be sent to all the 'pets' channels in your servers in higher resolution.

However, Discord is also changing how that limit is measured on mobile, which means you'll experience this update differently depending on which platform you use. Previously, Discord could compress a file on mobile before checking whether it was within the upload limit. Now, the company is checking the original file size before compression, bringing mobile in line with the way desktop has already handled uploads so far.

So, while the maximum file upload size change should generally make things easier on desktop, mobile users may notice some differences. Files created or stored on iOS and Android can have larger original sizes, so some uploads may now reach the 20MB limit before compression can reduce their size. As a result, certain files that previously made it through after compression could now be rejected if their original size is above the limit.

The net impact varies by platform," Discord says. "Those of you on Desktop should generally find uploads easier. On iOS and Android, where file uploads tend to be larger, you may hit the limit more often, even with the higher limit."

But this update doesn't mean Discord Nitro has lost its advantages. Yes, free users can now upload files up to 20MB, but Nitro subscribers still receive significantly larger limits from 50MB for the base plan to up to 500MB of uploads for the full Nitro plan. For users who regularly share high-resolution media or larger videos, those higher limits can still make a substantial difference - especially if you use Discord for work.

For everyone else, your free uploads can now sustain files up to 20MB, so your pet, or food photos, just got a little more room to impress your Discord friends.