I’m working on a Discord bot and need help with setting up automatic message deletion. I want the bot to remove its own messages after a certain amount of time passes. Here’s what I tried so far:
setTimeout(() => {
removeMessage();
}, 180000);
The code above doesn’t work properly and I’m not sure what the correct approach should be. I need the bot to automatically clean up messages it sends after a few minutes have passed. What’s the proper way to implement this functionality? I’m using Discord.js library for my bot development. Any help would be appreciated!
If your bot sends messages frequently, you’ll want to manage multiple deletions efficiently. Use a queue system or Map to track pending deletions - I learned this the hard way when my bot hit rate limits from too many simultaneous delete operations. Store the timeout IDs so you can clear them if needed:
const deleteTimeouts = new Map();
const sentMessage = await message.channel.send('Your message');
const timeoutId = setTimeout(() => {
sentMessage.delete().catch(console.error);
deleteTimeouts.delete(sentMessage.id);
}, 180000);
deleteTimeouts.set(sentMessage.id, timeoutId);
This also lets you cancel scheduled deletions if things change.
yeah, gizmo’s right. just make sure the message still exists before deleting it. users sometimes delete messages manually first, which’ll make your bot throw an error. use sentMessage.deletable to check if you can still delete it before calling .delete()
Your issue is that removeMessage() doesn’t exist in Discord.js. You need to use the message object’s delete method instead. When your bot sends a message, store what it returns and call delete on that. Here’s how:
const sentMessage = await message.channel.send('Your message here');
setTimeout(() => {
sentMessage.delete().catch(console.error);
}, 180000);
Always wrap the delete call in a try-catch or use .catch() - the message might already be deleted or your bot might not have permissions. I’ve used this pattern for months without problems. Just capture the message object when you send it, then reference that same object for deletion.