How to read your Discord data package on Android
Discord will send you a zip of your account data: messages, servers, account details and a lot of activity logs. It’s mostly JSON, so it’s readable on a phone once you know which files to open and which to leave alone.
Short answer
Request the package in Discord under User Settings → Data & Privacy, then download the zip from the email Discord sends. Extract it with your file manager. Your messages are in the messages folder, with one subfolder per conversation holding its message file and a channel.json that says which conversation it is. Open those in a JSON viewer. Skip the activity folder, which is analytics logs, not your conversations.
Get Sonnet free Reads the files offline, nothing uploaded.
1. Request the package
In the Discord app, open User Settings → Data & Privacy and choose the option to request your data. On desktop, some versions let you pick what to include. Discord emails you a download link when the package is ready. That isn’t instant: expect anything from a few days to a few weeks. The link expires after a while, so download the zip when it arrives.
2. Extract the zip on your phone
- Download the zip from the email. It goes to Downloads.
- Open Files by Google or your phone’s file manager, tap the zip and choose Extract.
- Open the extracted folder. There’s a
README.txtat the top that describes the contents, which is worth a look.
3. What’s in each folder
| Folder | What it holds | Worth opening? |
|---|---|---|
account | Your profile and account settings (user.json), connected accounts, and your avatar image | Yes: small and readable |
messages | One folder per DM, group or server channel you’ve posted in, with a channel.json and your messages in that channel | Yes: this is usually why people download it |
servers | One folder per server you’re in, with its basic details | Sometimes |
activity | Analytics and event logs: app opens, clicks, voice sessions | Rarely, and files can be huge |
programs | Data from apps and integrations | Rarely |
Folder layout per Discord’s data-package README and community tools that parse it, as of September 2026. Discord changes the format occasionally. Older packages stored messages as CSV files instead of JSON.
4. Read your messages
- Open
messages. The folder names are channel IDs, numbers that mean nothing on their own. - Open a folder’s
channel.jsonin Sonnet to see which conversation it is: for a server channel, its name and server; for a DM, the participants’ user IDs. - Open the message file in the same folder. Each entry is one message you sent, with its ID, a timestamp, the text and any attachment links.
Only your own messages are included, not the other side of the conversation. Messages in channels or servers that have since been deleted are gone for good, so they won’t be in the package either.
Tip: Sonnet Pro adds search, which jumps straight to a word or name inside a long message file. Without it, fold the tree and scroll by date.
Why skip the activity folder
The activity folder records what the Discord apps logged about your usage. For a long-time user those files can get very large, bigger than a phone app opens comfortably. They’re also often written as one JSON object per line rather than as a single JSON document, which JSON viewers expecting one document reject. If you do want to explore them, use a computer. How to open a large JSON file lists tools for files that size.
A note on size
Most files in account, servers and messages are small. A very active channel can produce a larger message file. Sonnet shows the full tree for JSON up to about 2 MB for free, and opens files up to 20 MB as formatted text. Sonnet Pro, a one-time unlock, raises that to a 30 MB tree and 50 MB files.
Read your Discord data on your phone
Sonnet opens JSON files as a collapsible tree, entirely offline, so your messages never leave the device. No ads, no account. Free on Google Play.
