commands

`messages`

github edit

messages

Lists exact message slices by channel, author, and time range. Unlike search, this does not query the FTS index - it pulls a slice of rows.

#Usage

discrawl messages --channel maintainers --days 7 --all
discrawl messages --channel maintainers --hours 6 --all
discrawl messages --channel "#maintainers" --since 2026-03-01T00:00:00Z
discrawl messages --channel 1456744319972282449 --author steipete --limit 50
discrawl messages --channel maintainers --last 100 --sync
discrawl messages --dm --channel Molty --last 20
discrawl messages --channel maintainers --days 7 --all --include-empty
discrawl --json messages --channel maintainers --days 3

#Flags

  • --channel <id|name|#name> - resolve one exact id, exact name, or unique partial name
  • --guild <id> / --guilds <id,id> / --dm - restrict the guild scope (--dm is shorthand for --guild @me)
  • --author <name> - restrict to one author
  • --hours <n> - shorthand for "since now minus N hours"
  • --days <n> - shorthand for "since now minus N days"
  • --since <RFC3339> - explicit start timestamp
  • --last <n> - return the newest N matching messages, then print oldest-to-newest
  • --limit <n> - safety limit (default 200; --all removes it)
  • --all - removes the safety limit
  • --sync - blocking pre-query sync for the matching channel or guild scope; omit while tail is already maintaining live freshness
  • --include-empty - include rows with no displayable/searchable content

#Notes

  • at least one filter is required
  • if tail is already running, plain messages reads the local archive without waiting; messages --sync fails fast instead of waiting behind the tail lock
  • --dm skips Git snapshot auto-update because DMs are never imported from the shared mirror
  • use either --last for the newest matching rows or --all for an uncapped oldest-to-newest slice
  • uncapped and large listings retain mention display names even beyond 32,766 messages; reply and mention lookups do not impose a separate row cap
  • ambiguous channel names fail with candidate guild/channel ids; resolve once with discrawl channels resolve <name> --json and reuse the numeric id

#Empty results

A listing that matches nothing can print a note to stderr naming the likely cause and a suggested next step: the channel has no messages in the local mirror (with a follow-up for a forum id, whose posts live in separate thread channels), every message in it is empty or attachment-only and so needs --include-empty, the --hours/--days/--since/--before window sits entirely outside the data, in which case the note reports the newest or oldest timestamp actually in scope, or the channel exists but sits in a guild outside the --guild/--guilds scope, in which case the note names the guild to use instead.

These notes are diagnostics, not output: they go to stderr and never stdout, --json suppresses them, and stdout bytes and the exit code are unchanged either way, so stdout-only pipelines retain their existing output; consumers merging stderr into stdout will see the new notes.

With --author, these notes are suppressed because the scope counts do not reproduce author-name matching. When both time bounds exclude every row, the note recommends removing both. A --channel that resolved to a name fragment rather than a concrete id gets none, because the counts behind one cannot reproduce that row set.

#See also