Commonly Changed Discord Settings

Privacy and Safety

Allow direct Messages from server members
If this is ON, you can receive DMs from people who are not your friends, but do share a server with you.
If this if OFF, non-friends will not be able to DM you.
You can also change these settings on a per-server basis.

Enable message requests from server members you may not know
If this is OFF, you will see DMs from non-friends like normal.
If this is ON, DMs from non-friends will go to another tab called "message requests" and you will not be notified when they are sent to you.
You can also change these settings on a per-server basis.

Authorized Apps

These are apps and bots that have connected to your discord account. Deauthorize any that don't look familiar.

Devices

These are devices (such as computers, tablets, and phones) that are logged into your Discord account. If you see any you don't recognize, remove access using the "x" or hit the "log out all known devices" button and then change your Discord account password.

Connections

Here you can display other accounts on your Discord profile, such as reddit, twitter, youtube, and more.

Clips

People who stream can use a feature called Clips to record pieces of it. If you do not want your voice to be captured inside of those clips, you can disable the "Allow my voice to be recorded in Clips" setting here.

Accessibility

There are many options here to make Discord more accessible for those with color sensitivies or blindness.
But the most common setting changed here involves animations.

Enable Reduced Motion
Automatically turns off the necessary settings.

Automatically play GIFs when Discord is focused
If this is ON, GIFs will play and loop for as long as you're looking at Discord.
If this is OFF, GIFs will only play when your mouse hovers over them.

Play animated emojis
Same as above. Will also prevent Super Reactions from animating.

Stickers
Same as GIFs.

Text & Images

Here are several settings to display regular images automatically or only their links.
But the most common setting changed here is near the bottom:

Open threads in split view
If this is ON, clicking on a thread will open it in a sidebar. In order to view it in the full window, you will have to click on it again. This also applies to forum channels.
If this is OFF, all threads and forum posts will open in the full window by default.

Notifications

Control how annoying Discord is when you get notifications.

Commonly Changed Settings on a Per-server Basis

Right click on the server icon and select "Notification Settings"

Here, you can choose what you would like to be notified of and what you would like to ignore.
I am obligated to say please don't ignore @everyone in BentoVid. We rarely use it.

Hide Muted Channels
You can mute individual channels in a server by right-clicking them and selecting "mute".
If you want to always hide the muted channels from the channel list, check this box.

Privacy Settings

These are all the privacy settings mentioned above, but are specific to particular servers.
Here you can have different settings from your defaults, if you trust one server's members over others, or, the inverse where you really don't trust a particular server.

The Inbox

This is not a setting, but it is a feature that is commonly overlooked.
On mobile, it will appear as the @ symbol near the bottom of the page where you set your status.
On desktop, it is a small box in the top right hand corner.

Clicking this will show you all of your pings.

In the top right of the inbox, you will see the filter icon. Clicking this allows you to filter the notifications (pictured above).
If you ever got a ping and couldn't find where it came from, check your inbox.