Discord Strikethrough: How to Cross Out Text (~~ Guide + Preview)
Crossing out text in Discord takes two tildes — ~~like this~~ — and about three seconds. This page covers the message method with a live preview, plus the Unicode strikethrough for the places markdown can’t reach.
Strikethrough in messages: ~~two tildes~~
Step by step
- Type
~~(two tildes — the key left of 1, with Shift on most layouts). - Write your text.
- Close with
~~again and send. Discord renders it crossed out.
Desktop shortcut: select text in the message box and press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + X? Not quite — Discord’s selection toolbar has a strikethrough button on desktop when you highlight text in the input, which does the tildes for you. On mobile, long-press the selection for the same menu.
Combining strikethrough
Stacks with everything: **~~bold strike~~**, ~~__struck underline__~~, and inside quotes or spoilers. To show literal tildes, escape them: ~~not struck~~.
Strikethrough where markdown doesn’t work
Names, channel titles and bios ignore ~~. There, use Unicode strikethrough — combining characters that draw the line through each letter:
Copy the “Strikethrough” or “Slashed” style. One caveat: combining characters can render unevenly on some devices, so keep struck names short.
Strikethrough questions
Why isn’t my strikethrough working?
Almost always one of three: single tildes instead of double, a space between the tildes and the text (~~ text ~~ fails — hug the text), or smart-punctuation on mobile converting the tilde to a different character.
Can I strikethrough in a Discord username?
Not with markdown — names ignore it. Use the Unicode strikethrough from the generator on this page instead; it works because the line is part of the characters themselves.
Does strikethrough work in channel names?
Markdown doesn’t, and channel names also strip the combining characters Unicode strikethrough uses — so effectively no. Small caps or monospace are the reliable channel-name styles.
Every other style — bold, italics, spoilers, headers — lives in the full formatting guide.