IRC Channel Lists
How to find a channel
On IRC, channels are where people meet and chat. You may know them as “chat rooms”. These are a few pointers for finding channels:
- Want to join a specific channel? You need to know the name of the network or server and the channel name such as #whatevername (channel names start with a # symbol and do not contain spaces). If you only have the channel name but not the network, you can still try the multi-network lists below.
- Want to get a list of channels on your current server? Once you connect to a server, you can get a full list of all public channels on that server or network by typing
/list(on a new line in any window, beginning with the/character). Realize that on major networks, this list could include tens of thousands of channels, and may even cause you to flood yourself off. If this happens, see our troubleshooting guide or just use the web search engines below. - Want to find people in your own city, or a specific person? IRC is not set up to make it easy to trace people geographically or personally. You can search through a
/listoutput as described above to find channels for reasonably large cities/states/countries such as #kampung or #bulgaria. Many of the channels are “secret” and won’t be shown in such lists. Alternatively, you can always try guessing the channel name and/join #whatever. Note, however, that people in the channel could be from anywhere, not just that place. Likewise, you can’t just search for somebody by their real name or location. You’re probably better off just finding people with common interests regardless of where they are, and just chat and have fun. - Want to search for a specific topic? You can try
/list *keyword*(in mIRC you don’t need the asterisks). Note that on EFnet and many other nets, you end up doing a full/listin the background, then the matching entries are displayed to you. It may be faster to just do that full/listand then search through the results yourself, or just use the web search features below.
Troubleshooting
Having trouble getting a channel list? Do you get disconnected when you try, or maybe see errors like “List output too large, truncated”? This is a very common problem, either try switching to another server on the same network, or just use the web search features below. For more information on why this happens, see our channel list troubleshooting guide.
Web-based Channel Lists
Multiple network channel search:
These external sites each boast 100000s of channels on 100s of nets. This is the best way to find public channels that match your interests. Select the link to go to those sites directly, or just type in a keyword into either of the blanks below and we will submit your request for you. If you need to come back, remember to use the “BACK” button on your browser, or bookmark this page for easy reference.
For each search site below, just enter channel name or topic keyword and select “Search”:
EFnet Channel Search
To search EFnet only, use our IRCHelp EFnet Channel search below or the semi- official EFnet.org channel search [ext. link]. To list all channels (over 12000!), leave the search string empty. Do not include wildcards like asterisks (). For example, just enter foo and it will find #ThaiFood, #*foo__-fighters, etc.
Enter channel name or topic keyword: Number of users: minimum 2 351025 50100200 maximum 2 351025 50100200 9999 (if you want bigger channels, set the minimum to 25 or more)
Search by channel: name topic name or topic
IRCnet Channel Search (external link) Similar to our EFnet list above, but for IRCnet only.