Switch Discord bots: move levels, role menus and commands to Lizbot

Many servers have run with the same bot for years. Switching Discord bots usually stalls on the worry that something gets lost along the way: members' levels, the reaction roles in the roles channel, custom commands or the carefully worded welcome text. Then there's the fear that two bots will do everything twice for a while.

Lizbot has a dedicated area for the move that scans your server and takes over what your previous bot set up. In this guide you'll walk through the switch step by step: run both side by side, scan, bring over levels and role menus, import commands and remove the old bot cleanly.

What can be moved and what can't

AutoMod rules, custom commands and timers of other bots can't be taken over automatically, because they aren't publicly visible on Discord. That's why you paste commands as text yourself and set up AutoMod fresh. The AutoMod guide shows how.

1. Invite Lizbot alongside your old bot

Invite Lizbot via the dashboard without removing the old bot. Both can run side by side for a while. You'll find the move in the dashboard under Tools in the Switch bots tab. You need admin rights on the server.

At the top of the page, Bots found shows which known bots Lizbot spots on your server and which modules it can take over from them. If both are currently doing the same thing, such as sending a welcome message twice, Lizbot warns you. Turn that feature off on one of them.

Mind the role order: Lizbot can only assign roles below its own role. Drag the Lizbot role above all level, ping and interest roles in your server settings.

2. Scan your server

In the Assistant tab, click Scan server. Lizbot reads recent messages in up to 25 channels, starting with channels named something like log, welcome, roles or ticket. It detects:

• which channels serve as mod log or log
• your previous bot's welcome and goodbye texts
• ticket panels with their buttons
• reaction roles and role menus
• which Lizbot modules can take over the old bot's jobs

Nothing is changed while scanning. Concrete details in welcome texts are turned back into placeholders: the new member's mention becomes {user.mention}, the server name {guild.name} and the member count {guild.memberCount}. That way the text works for the next member too.

3. Review and apply the plan

The scan produces a Suggested plan. Each step can be ticked or unticked individually. Uncertain suggestions, such as role mappings Lizbot isn't sure about, start unticked. Read the notes below the plan; they tell you what you need to handle by hand.

Apply selection carries out the plan. Afterwards you see what was applied and which steps didn't work. You can scan again at any time.

4. Bring over levels

In the Levels tab you choose the source:

• File: CSV or JSON with user ID and XP, optionally level and message count. Exports from other leveling bots usually work as they are. You can download a template. The file can be up to 8 MB. Before importing, Lizbot shows how many entries it found and which columns it mapped.
• Public leaderboard: for one widely used leveling bot, Lizbot can load your server's public leaderboard directly. It has to be set to public there. Whether that works for your previous bot is shown in the tab.

Then you set the Conversion:

• Keep levels: everyone gets the same level in Lizbot as before, whatever the XP curve looks like.
• XP 1:1: XP is copied, the level follows Lizbot's curve.

If your server already has levels in Lizbot, choose between Merge (the higher value wins) and Replace. With Grant reward roles afterwards, everyone immediately gets the level roles they're entitled to. Set up the role rewards under Level & XP first. More in the level system guide.

5. Bring over role menus

In the Role menus tab, paste links to the messages (right-click the message, copy link) or pick channels for Lizbot to search. Find role menus detects which emoji or button belongs to which role and shows how confident Lizbot is about each find.

There's one important difference:

• Reaction roles: Lizbot takes over the existing message. The reactions stay and your members won't notice the switch.
• Menus with buttons or a dropdown: these components belong to the old bot and stop working without it. So Lizbot posts a new button role menu in the same channel. You delete the old message yourself afterwards.

Lizbot never hands out roles with staff permissions like Ban or Manage Messages through menus. How to fine-tune role menus afterwards is covered in the guide to setting up Discord roles.

6. Bring over custom commands

In the Commands tab, paste your commands as text, one per line, for example !rules Please read #rules or rules: Please read #rules. Alternatively, load a CSV or JSON file with name and response.

Under Placeholders from you choose which bot the texts come from. Lizbot then translates known placeholders into its own; unknown ones stay as they are. The prefix command becomes a slash command: the prefix is dropped and the name is lowercased, so !Rules becomes /rules.

Check shows you up front what will be created, updated or skipped. A command is skipped if its name belongs to Lizbot, already exists, appears twice or your plan limit is reached. Lizbot only replaces existing commands if you turn on Overwrite existing commands.

7. Remove the old bot

Once everything works, remove the old bot yourself via the server settings under Integrations or by right-clicking it in the member list. Lizbot never removes other bots. Afterwards, delete old role menu messages that no longer work and create a backup of your new setup.

Limits by plan

Checklist

• Lizbot invited, old bot still running
• Lizbot role above every role it should assign
• scan done and suggested plan reviewed
• levels imported and reward roles granted
• role menus moved and old button menus deleted
• custom commands imported and tested
• duplicate features turned off on the old bot
• old bot removed, backup created

Common mistakes

• Removing the old bot too early: Lizbot can still read its messages, but button menus stop working. Only remove it once everything has been moved.
• Letting both bots work twice: two welcome messages or double level-ups confuse members. Turn off overlapping features on one bot right away.
• Lizbot role too low: then assigning level and menu roles fails.
• Blindly ticking uncertain suggestions: check low-confidence mappings before you apply them.
• Leaderboard not public: Lizbot can't load a private leaderboard. Use the file export instead.