Discord Join to Create Voice Channel: Set Up Temporary Rooms

Many servers have five, ten or even more fixed voice channels: "Gaming 1", "Gaming 2", "Chill", "Duo", "Squad". Most of the time almost all of them are empty. Newcomers see a long list of silent channels and have little desire to sit in one of them alone. And when things do get busy, there still aren't enough, or two groups end up in the same channel.

Temporary voice channels solve this. There is just one channel to join, often called "Create room". Anyone who joins it instantly gets their own room and is moved into it. As soon as the room is empty, it disappears again. In this guide you set it up step by step, in Discord and with Lizbot, and learn how to choose sensible names, limits and permissions.

Why fixed voice channels feel empty

An empty voice channel says: nobody is here. Ten empty channels say it ten times. At the same time, fixed channels force everyone into a grid you set up once. A group of three sits in the "Squad" channel with a limit of 5, two strangers join, and the session is ruined.

Join to create changes the picture:

• The channel list only shows what is happening right now. Every visible room is a room where someone is sitting.
• Every group gets its own room, with a fitting name and limit.
• You have less to manage. Instead of maintaining lots of channels, you set rules for all new rooms once.

Fixed channels still have their place: a "Lobby" channel to hang out in, a channel for events or a stage channel for announcements. The mix is what matters. For spontaneous sessions, temporary rooms are almost always the better choice.

How join to create works

Discord itself does not offer temporary voice channels. A bot handles this by watching who joins which channel. With Lizbot it works like this:

1. A member joins the creator channel.
2. Lizbot creates a new voice channel, for example "Alex's room", and moves the member into it.
3. That member is now the owner of the room and controls it through a panel with buttons in the voice channel's text chat or with the /voice command.
4. When the last person leaves the room, Lizbot deletes it, either immediately or after a delay.

If Lizbot restarts, it cleans up orphaned empty rooms on startup. That way no ghost channels are left behind. If you're coming from TeamSpeak, these rooms replace the temporary channels you're used to, more in Switching from TeamSpeak to Discord.

1. Create the creator channel in Discord

First create a category for your rooms, such as "Voice". To do this, click the server name in the top left and choose "Create Category" from the menu. Then click the plus next to the category and create a Voice channel, for example "Create room" or "➕ New room".

A few tips for the creator channel:

• Don't set a user limit. Otherwise at some point nobody can join to create a room.
• Move it to the very top of the category so it stands out right away.
• Visibility works like any other channel. Anyone who can't see the channel or isn't allowed to join it can't create a room. If you only want verified members to do this, remove the "Connect" permission from @everyone in the channel permissions and grant it to your member role. The guide Set up Discord roles explains how roles and channel overwrites work together.

Lizbot's permissions matter too. Lizbot needs Manage Channels to create and delete rooms, and Move Members to move members into their room and kick them out. If Lizbot is missing one of these permissions on the server, the Server check in the dashboard reports it. An overwrite on the category that takes those permissions away from Lizbot is not detected, though. So check the category yourself. The guide Setting channel permissions correctly shows how overwrites on categories and channels work.

2. Enable voice rooms in Lizbot

Open the dashboard, pick your server and go to Modules. In the Automation group you will find Voice rooms. The feature is included in the Free plan.

On the Temporary voice rooms page, set the following in the General section:

• Enabled: turns the feature on.
• Creator channel: the voice channel from step 1.
• Category for new rooms: Leave it empty and rooms are created in the creator channel's category. A separate category is worth it if you want to visually separate rooms from fixed channels.

Save, done. Join the creator channel once yourself to check that your room is created.

3. Set the name, limit and bitrate for new rooms

In the New rooms section you decide what every fresh room looks like:

• Name: a template such as {user}'s room. {user} is replaced with the owner's display name on your server. Below it you see a preview. Good examples: {user}'s squad, Squad of {user}, 🎮 {user}.
• User limit: 0 means unlimited, otherwise 1 to 99.
• Bitrate: the default is 64 kbps. Without server boosts up to 96 kbps is possible, with boost levels up to 384 kbps. Lizbot automatically caps the value at what your server allows.

For most communities one creator channel is enough. If you often play in fixed group sizes, you can add up to ten more under More creator channels, each with its own name and limit. An example for a gaming server:

That way duo players never end up in a room ten people can join, and you still only need three channels in the list. Which bitrate each boost level allows and what else helps against poor sound is explained in Improving Discord voice quality.

4. Decide what owners can do

In the What owners can do section you decide how much control members have over their own room:

• Rename
• Change user limit
• Lock and unlock: A locked room stays visible, but nobody new can join. This switch also covers "Mute all", where only the owner can speak.
• Hide: The room disappears from the channel list. Only permitted members, the staff and administrators can still see it.
• Kick people from the room: Despite its name, this switch controls banning from the room. Banned members no longer see the room and can't join. A simple kick, where someone just gets disconnected and may rejoin, is always available to owners.

On top of that there are two basic settings: New rooms start locked, handy for servers where rooms are mostly used privately, and Post control panel in the text chat. If you turn the panel off, owners can only control their room with /voice.

As a rule of thumb: on public community servers, leave everything on but maintain the list of banned words (see below). On servers with many young members, you can turn off Hide so your staff can always see which rooms exist.

5. Control your own room

As soon as a room is created, Lizbot posts the control panel in the voice channel's text chat. It shows the owner, whether the room is open or locked, visible or hidden, the limit, the bitrate and the region. Below that are the buttons:

• Lock and Hide, Limit and Rename
• a member picker, followed by Allow, Kick or Ban. "Allow" also lets a member into a locked or hidden room.
• Transfer hands the room to someone else.
• Claim makes you the owner when the previous owner has left the room.
• More opens voice region, bitrate, Mute all, Unban, Repost panel as well as Save as default and Clear default.
• Delete removes the room immediately.

Everything is also available as a command, for example /voice lock, /voice limit count:4, /voice rename, /voice permit, /voice kick, /voice ban, /voice transfer, /voice claim, /voice region and /voice bitrate. Use /voice panel to repost the panel if it has scrolled up in the chat.

Save as default (/voice save) is especially handy. Lizbot then remembers the name, limit, lock, visibility, bitrate, region as well as permitted and banned members. Your next room starts exactly like that. Use /voice reset to clear these preferences again.

6. Clean up and prevent abuse

Temporary rooms shouldn't turn into playgrounds for trolls. There are three settings for this in the same section:

• Delete empty rooms after: 0 means immediately. A value of 30 to 120 seconds is more comfortable if someone briefly loses their connection or switches channels. If someone comes back within that time, the room stays. The maximum is 3600 seconds.
• Banned words in room names: If a name contains one of these words, Lizbot rejects the rename, regardless of upper or lower case. For new rooms, Lizbot replaces an unsuitable name with a neutral one.
• Staff roles with full access: Members with these roles can control any room, join hidden ones too, and can be neither kicked nor banned by owners. The same applies to administrators.

That way your staff can step in at any time: join a room, take it over with Claim, lock it or delete it. For rule violations outside the room, use the normal moderation tools, as described in the guide Build a moderation team.

A note on names: Discord limits how often a channel can be renamed in a short time. Anyone who renames their room several times in a row may therefore have to wait a few minutes before the change shows up.

Voice XP: reward activity in rooms

If you use the level system, you can reward time in voice chat. In the dashboard under Leveling you will find the XP in voice channels section. Turn on Voice XP enabled and set XP per minute, the default is 5.

To stop anyone from farming XP, there are safeguards: Minimum people in the channel is set to 2, and bots don't count. Muted members earn no XP and Ignore AFK channel are on by default. Under Ignored voice channels you can exclude, for example, the creator channel or a music channel. Voice XP is included in the Free plan. You can read more about level roles and rewards in the guide Discord level system.

Checklist

• Category and creator channel created, without a user limit
• Lizbot has Manage Channels and Move Members
• Voice rooms module enabled, creator channel selected
• Name, limit and bitrate set for new rooms
• more creator channels for duos or squads if needed
• owner permissions chosen to suit your community
• deletion delay and banned words filled in
• staff roles with full access set
• tested once yourself: room is created, panel appears, room disappears

Common mistakes

• Limit on the creator channel: Once the channel is full, nobody can create a room. Leave the limit there at unlimited.
• Lizbot is missing "Move Members": Lizbot then creates the room but can't move you into it, and deletes it again.
• The category locks Lizbot out: An overwrite on the category that removes "Manage Channels" from Lizbot prevents new rooms.
• Module enabled, but no creator channel selected: The dashboard then warns "No rooms are created without a creator channel".
• Expecting too high a bitrate: Without boosts it stays at 96 kbps, even if you enter more.
• No staff roles set: An owner can then ban moderators from their room or hide it without the staff easily getting in.