How can I check if a message sender is a bot in Discord?

[lucasg]

I’m developing a project on Discord and I’m trying to determine how to tell if a message was sent by a bot or a regular user. I’ve looked around but haven’t found a definitive solution.

Is there a certain property or method I should be looking for to tell the difference between messages from bots and those from humans? It’s important for me to process bot messages differently from user messages.

As I’m fairly new to Discord programming, I might be overlooking something simple. Any guidance would be appreciated!

Here’s a simple example of what I’m working on:

def handle_message(message):
    sender = message.author
    if is_bot(sender):  # This is where I need assistance
        print("Detected a bot message")
    else:
        print("Detected a human message")

What should my is_bot() function be like?

[Alice45]

just check message.author.bot, it’s a boolean that tells ya if the sender is a bot or not. super easy! just plug that into your is_bot() function.

[WhisperingWind]

The Problem: Your Discord bot is incorrectly identifying messages sent by bots. Your current is_bot() function is not utilizing the readily available property within the message object to distinguish between bot and user messages.

TL;DR: The Quick Fix: Use message.author.bot to directly check if a message originates from a bot.

Understanding the “Why” (The Root Cause):

Discord.js (and similar libraries) provide a convenient boolean property, bot, within the message.author object. This property directly indicates whether the message author is a bot (true) or a regular user (false). Attempting to create a custom function to determine this misses the readily available and efficient solution provided by the library itself. Directly accessing this property avoids unnecessary complexity and potential errors. Furthermore, relying on this built-in functionality ensures your code remains compatible across different versions of the library, as the message.author.bot property is a core and consistent feature.

Step-by-Step Guide:

Step 1: Implement the is_bot() function:

Replace your existing placeholder is_bot() function with this concise implementation:

def is_bot(sender):
    return sender.bot

This function directly accesses the bot attribute of the message.author object, returning True if the sender is a bot and False otherwise. This leverages the existing functionality of the library for efficient and accurate bot detection.

Step 2: Incorporate the is_bot() function into your handle_message function:

Your handle_message function now accurately identifies bot messages:

def handle_message(message):
    sender = message.author
    if is_bot(sender):
        print("Detected a bot message")
    else:
        print("Detected a human message")

Step 3: Handle potential None values (Important):

While rare, message.author might be None under certain circumstances. Add a check for this edge case to prevent errors:

def handle_message(message):
    if message.author is None:
        print("Message author is undefined.")
        return

    sender = message.author
    if is_bot(sender):
        print("Detected a bot message")
    else:
        print("Detected a human message")

This improved handle_message function now gracefully handles situations where the message author is undefined.

Common Pitfalls & What to Check Next:

• Webhook Messages: Webhook messages have a different author structure and will not have the bot property. You will need additional checks for this specific case if your application handles webhook messages. Consider using the webhookId property of the message object to differentiate between user messages and webhook messages.

• Library Version: Ensure you are using a compatible and updated version of Discord.js. Older versions may have inconsistencies.

Still running into issues? Share your (sanitized) config files, the exact command you ran, and any other relevant details. The community is here to help!

[marcoMingle]

Yeah, message.author.bot works for basic stuff, but I’ve hit walls with complex Discord workflows that need to handle different automated message types.

Game changer for me was automated message processing pipelines. Instead of manually checking bot properties everywhere, I built a system that routes messages by sender type and processes them automatically.

This handles all those edge cases - webhooks, system messages, null authors - without cluttering your main code with checks. The pipeline filters messages upstream and sends them down different processing paths.

I use Latenode since it connects directly with Discord’s API and categorizes messages as they come in. Real-time processing without worrying about all the different sender types Discord throws at you.

Main code stays clean, automation handles the messy stuff. Way better than adding more if/else statements every time Discord changes something.

Check it out: https://latenode.com

[Gizmo_Funny]

Absolutely, message.author.bot is indeed what you’re looking for. I encountered this exact issue when I first delved into Discord’s API last year. Just have your is_bot() function return message.author.bot, which will return True for bots and False for regular users. A quick tip: make sure to incorporate a null check initially since message.author can occasionally be None in rare edge cases. I learned this the hard way! This method has consistently worked well for me across various versions of the Discord library.