Discord caps a single category at 50 channels, and every ticket that opens as a private channel counts against that cap. OnyxBot deletes a ticket's channel when the ticket closes, so most servers never get near it. If yours does, set a category's Ticket location to Private thread on Tickets, then Panels. Thread tickets are created inside a text channel you already have, so no new channel is made.
Do closed tickets give the channel back?
Yes. On close, OnyxBot posts the closing notice and deletes the channel five seconds later, so your channel count tracks tickets open right now, not tickets ever opened. Three things stretch that:
- Categories that leave Auto-close after inactivity (hours) empty never close on their own, so abandoned tickets sit open forever.
- Open tickets per member on Tickets, then Settings goes as high as 10 tickets at a time, for every member. The default is 1.
- When the Discord category you picked fills its 50 slots, OnyxBot creates a second one named
<name> (Overflow 1)and opens new tickets there. Tickets keep flowing, but an overflow category is a channel too. OnyxBot deletes an empty one once its last ticket closes.
How do I switch a category to threads?
- Open Tickets, then Panels.
- Click the pencil icon on the category row.
- Set Ticket location to Private thread.
- Click Save changes. The row now shows a Thread badge.
The change applies to the next ticket opened, and tickets already open stay in their channels. OnyxBot builds the thread in the text channel the member clicked from, climbing to the parent channel when the click came from inside a thread, and it needs Create Private Threads there. The Discord category field is not used in thread mode.
What changes for staff and transcripts?
- OnyxBot locks and archives a closed thread instead of deleting it, so old tickets stay in the channel's archive.
- Transcripts do not change. Messages are stored outside Discord and read at Tickets, then Transcripts, whichever way the ticket opened.
- Staff arrive by ping. A channel ticket grants your staff roles view access when the channel is created. A private thread grants nothing, so the staff-role mention is what pulls your team in: the escalation briefing when AI answering is on, the welcome message when it is off.
/ticket movecannot re-parent a thread. The ticket gets renamed and the new team gets pinged, but it stays under the original channel.
When are channels still better?
Keep private channels if your panel lives in a forum channel: only text channels can hold private threads, and the ticket will refuse to open with "Ticket threads cannot be created from this channel." Keep them if your staff sort and scan tickets by Discord category, since that grouping only applies to channel tickets. And keep them if your categories are nowhere near 50 channels, because the count going up and back down is the normal, healthy pattern.