Discord bots need the PIN_MESSAGES permission to pin from February 23, 2026

What this means for you

Pinning keeps an important post at the top of a Discord channel. Discord gave pinning its own permission. Since February 23, 2026, a bot needs that exact permission to pin. If your scheduler pins announcements and suddenly can't, a server admin needs to give the bot "Pin Messages".

The details

• PIN_MESSAGES (1 << 51): split from MANAGE_MESSAGES on August 20, 2025. From February 23, 2026, "MANAGE_MESSAGES alone will no longer be sufficient."
• CREATE_GUILD_EXPRESSIONS (1 << 43): available to bots since November 20, 2025; required from February 23, 2026 to create custom emoji and stickers.
• CREATE_EVENTS (1 << 44): available to bots since November 20, 2025; required from February 23, 2026 to create scheduled events.
• BYPASS_SLOWMODE (1 << 52): split from MANAGE_MESSAGES, MANAGE_CHANNEL and MANAGE_THREADS; "bots are not affected by slowmode restrictions."
• Date change: the August 20, 2025 entry said backwards compatibility would end on January 12, 2026; the November 24, 2025 entry moved the breaking change to February 23, 2026.
• Pin endpoints: the current routes are PUT and DELETE /channels/{channel.id}/messages/pins/{message.id}; the older /channels/{channel.id}/pins routes were deprecated on June 25, 2025.

What to do next

• Business owners: If a bot stopped pinning posts in your server, give its role the Pin Messages permission.
• Marketers and agencies: Check that the bots you use for pinned announcements have Pin Messages in every server you manage.
• Developers: Request PIN_MESSAGES in your OAuth2 install permissions, handle permission errors on pin calls with a clear message to admins, and move to the /messages/pins routes.