Discord Autorole: Automatically Assign Roles to New Members

A base "member" role unlocks the rest of the server's channels and permissions for everyone who joins, with no extra step. Without it, every new member either sees a restricted, confusing default view, or a staff member has to manually assign a role to each person who joins — which doesn't scale past a handful of members.

Discord has no native "assign this role automatically on join" setting — the closest built-in option is the default @everyone role, which can't be customized per-member and isn't a real substitute for a proper member role with intentional permissions. Automatic role assignment on join is entirely a bot feature.

This is the part that trips people up: autorole isn't a standalone Airwavy feature with its own settings page. It's a capability inside Welcome Messages — the same feature that sends a greeting when someone joins can also grant a role in that same moment.

• Configured directly in the Welcome Messages section of the dashboard, alongside the welcome message content itself.
• Requires Airwavy to have Manage Roles, and its own role to sit above the role being assigned — Discord blocks a bot from granting a role positioned at or above its own.
• Fires on every eligible join automatically — there's no member action required, unlike Reaction Roles, where a member has to click a button to opt in.
• This is a completely different mechanism from Reaction Roles (sometimes searched as "self roles"), which is opt-in and member-triggered — see the dedicated guide if that's what you're actually looking for.

1. Create the role you want new members to receive, if it doesn't already exist.
2. Open Server Settings → Roles and move Airwavy's role above it.
3. Open Welcome Messages in the dashboard and enable the feature if it isn't already.
4. Configure the autorole setting with the role you created.
5. Save, then test with a fresh or alternate account joining the server to confirm the role is granted immediately.

• Confusing autorole with reaction roles — if members should be able to choose between multiple roles, that's Reaction Roles, not autorole, which always grants the same fixed role to everyone.
• Looking for a separate "Autorole" page in the dashboard — it doesn't exist as its own section; it's a setting inside Welcome Messages.
• Placing the target role above Airwavy's own role, so the grant silently fails for every new member.
• Assigning a role with real permissions (moderation, channel management) as the autorole — treat it the same as any self-service or automatic role: only grant what's safe for literally every new member to have immediately.