[Updated] Discord app new UI or compact design after v126.21 update on Android met with criticism

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on August 18, 2022) follows:

Discord is one of the most popular tools for gamers to communicate with their friends via voice, text, and video.

The majority of servers on the platform are private or invite-only spaces for people that share similar interests to stay in touch with each other.

That said, Discord recently released an update for its Android users in which they overhauled some major visual features of the app.

And now, Discord users are reporting that they dislike the new UI that brings a compact design after the v126.21 update on Android (1,2,3,4,5,6,7).

Daily complaints about performance and UI quality after the update have become common on Twitter. Many say the whole app now feels sluggish.

General functions like opening the emote menu lag the whole screen. New messages in a chat fiercely (pop/jump) appear on the screen which makes reading extremely difficult.

There are inconsistencies in text size as well, as it’s unexpectedly big or small in some cases. Even the deafen feature on voice or video calls doesn’t feel fast anymore as there seems to be a delay in that as well.

@discord Since the new discord android app update new messages in a chat “pop”/”jump” fiercely on your screen making reading extremely difficult and annoying as everything shifts very ad hoc and aggressive. Where are the smooth movements? Hopefully this be updated soon
Source

@discord Recent updates for the mobile app are getting increasingly invasive. Please stop. You dont need my contacts and I dont need to be notified when some randy is streaming a game in a server that I joined to be nice to the person that invited me. Dont fix what’s not broken.
Source

Others are unhappy with the image viewer’s zoom-in function, especially when viewing vertical images.

Why is the mobile image viewer so terrible on this app?
Especially on vertical images it’s just horrendous, you try and zoom in and for some dipshit reason it keeps the original image frame size but just zooms within that area rather than just zooming the whole picture like every other mobile app for the last decade does. I don’t get it, what makes it so shit?
Source

Discord users have taken to social media to criticize these UI changes as the Android app was functioning fine prior to this new update but now it’s more compact and pretty much unusable for some.

We hope developers listen to the community and fix the problems as soon as possible. When they do, we will update this article to let you know so stay tuned for more information.

10:23 am (IST): Responding to a user’s query regarding the new compact UI design, Discord support said they’ll pass the feedback to their team. Also, they recommended adding the info to their feedback page.

Thank you so much for sharing that! We always appreciate it when our users offer us constructive feedback. I’ll pass this along to my team, but you should also add it to our feedback page (Source)

09:52 am (IST): In the new compact UI design, some users don’t like the change where all emoticons automatically get changed to emojis. But fortunately, there’s a way to toggle it off. Here’s how you can do that.

Heya! If you go to User Settings > Text & Images > Toggle off “Automatically convert emoticons in your message to emoji” on *Desktop* it should then sync with your mobile! (Source)

06:04 pm (IST): After the recent update, users are also complaining that they are unable to send links without converting them into files.

Since the new update the mobile Android app is nigh unusable. It’s slow, I can’t post links without them being converted to files, and the UI is confusing. Please allow users an option to roll back to a previous build until the new app runs better. (Source)

06:20 pm (IST): A YouTuber has suggested a way to revert back to the previous UI. It requires downloading an older version of the app (APK). You can check it out here.

03:37 pm (IST): Some users now say (1, 2) that the new update was introduced to unify the development processes of both iOS and Android app so that they can be updated simultaneously with the same features.

Moreover, the development teams of both platforms will work together and it will become a lot easier to manage the app. However, the performance on Android has reduced after the update as they might have ported the iOS codebase.

06:01 pm (IST): Some users are even reporting (1, 2, 3) that they are unable load GIFs and images after the new update on Android. Also, the videos are not loading or being sent if they exit Discord and return back.

03:09 pm (IST): One of our readers has noted that the new Discord update has also removed DM/channel shortcut widget.

Thanks for the tip: John Clark!

10:42 am (IST): Some users also do not like (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) the change where Discord only shows a few last saved media files, forcing them to open Gallery to access the rest.

However, before the update, users could scroll infinitely through images and videos directly on the Discord app without opening the Gallery.

09:41 am (IST): Many users are furious as Discord has reportedly shut down the support for older versions of the app. So, they are now forced to install the latest version with UI overhaul which they don’t like.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Apps Section so be sure to follow them as well.

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