How to Get Chat on Screen in OBS

Lee Stanton July 20, 2022

Viewer involvement is a key part of building a streaming audience, and chat is a great way to engage with your fans. If you’re wondering how to get a stream chat into your OBS studio, then you’ve come to the right place.

Once your OBS window features a stream chat, it will be easier for streamers to view the content and the chat at the same time. What’s great about this method is that it can be applied to any streaming service that has a popup chat feature.

In this guide, we will show you the different ways you can get a stream chat on screen in OBS, as well as answer some common questions regarding the chat feature in OBS.

OBS is one of the best programs for video recording and live streaming. It’s used for an array of online content creation such as gaming, music, multilingual streaming, and much more. What’s more, you can install it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. This software is also free, so you don’t have to worry about monthly subscriptions and additional fees.

OBS is best explained as the place where all your outputs and inputs meet. In other words, your microphone, camera, and game capture will all be configured in OBS. There are a ton of other useful built-in features that will take your streams to a whole new level.

One of those features is the ability to dock a stream chat to your OBS window. You can use this feature with any other streaming service, like Twitch, YouTube, Trovo, DLive, Mixer, Smashcast, and many more. However, it’s currently incompatible with YouTube Live and Facebook Live, but more on that later.

Adding a chat to your OBS stream will make it easier for other viewers to keep up with all the action while not missing out on anything that might happen in the chat. What’s more, each of these methods will only take a few brief moments of your time.

How to Add Stream Chat

As mentioned before, there are plenty of streaming services you can use for this purpose. Since Twitch is the most popular one, we will use it as an example in this guide. To add a Twitch stream chat in OBS, follow the steps below:

Open Twitch and head over to the profile page of your account.
Go to the Chat section and then to Chat Settings.
Choose Popout Chat from the list of options.

Note: In some streaming services, look for Popup chat.
Right-click on the URL from the popup window and copy it.
Launch OBS and click on View in the upper-left corner of your screen.
Choose Docks from the drop-down menu.
Select Custom Browser Docs… from the new drop-down list of options. This will open a new window.
Name your chat below the Dock Name section. Be sure to give it a simple yet memorable name.
Next to the chat’s name, enter the URL that you copied from Twitch.
Select Apply.

That’s all there is to it. The minimized stream chat will appear in the corner of the OBS window. What’s great about this feature is the ability to move the stream chat around or even resize it. Moreover, the space where you can place the stream chat will be highlighted in blue, so you will know where you can move it.

In case you don’t need the stream chat anymore, you can remove it in a matter of moments. All you need to do is repeat the same steps from above to open Custom Browser Docs, and from there, you can disable this chat feature relatively quickly.

How to Get Facebook Gaming Chat

As mentioned before, Facebook Live is not compatible with OBS. Therefore, Facebook Gaming doesn’t have a popup chat feature like other streaming services. The only way to dock a chat in Facebook Gaming in OBS is with a plugin. The best option for this is StreamElements’ OBS.Live plugin.

This plugin doesn’t cost anything, and it’s also compatible with YouTube and Twitch. It also comes with some additional useful features, like a feed where you can track activity and music controls. It’s also fairly simple to use. This is what you need to do:

Download the plugin and proceed to install the plugin using the instruction prompts.
Enable the plugin, open it on your computer, and log in using your Facebook account.

That’s it. The plugin will automatically pull in your chats, so you don’t have to worry about needing special technical skills. You can start streaming on Facebook Gaming and dock the stream chat in your OBS window.

Additional FAQs

How Can I Add a Chat Overlay to a Stream With OBS?

You can use OBS to add a chat overlay to your stream. Once again, we will be using Twitch as an example for the streaming service. Keep in mind that you need to have the newest OBS version to add a chat overlay to a stream.

Here’s how:

1. Run OBS and use your browser to go to your channel.

2. Head over to the Chat section and click on the Settings icon at the bottom.

3. Select Popout Chat from the list of options. This will open a new window.

4. Copy the URL from the new window.

5. Go back to OBS and click on the + in the bottom-left corner of the software.

6. Select Browser.

7. Type in the name for the chat overlay and choose OK.

8. Paste the URL that you copied before.

9. Customize the size of the chat if you want.

10. Select OK again.

Once you’ve finished, a new Twitch chat will pop up on your overlay. When you no longer need it, you can remove it just as quickly.

How can I Add a Twitch Chat Box to my OBS Stream?

You can also use StreamLabs to add a Twitch chat to your OBS stream. Moreover, this method will only take a couple of minutes. Follow the steps below to find out how it’s done:

1. Open StreamLabs on your browser and log in using your Twitch account.

Note: Don’t forget to allow authorization, or you won’t be able to do this otherwise.

2. Choose All Widgets from the list of options.

3. Proceed to Chat Box; this will take you to a new page.

4. Customize the chat’s appearance.

Note: At this point, you can choose the chat’s theme, color, font size, the length of the messages, emojis, background, etc. If you want your background to be transparent, then leave it as it is.

5. Click on the Save Settings button at the bottom of the page.

6. Copy the URL of the widget.

7. Run OBS and click on the + icon in the bottom-left corner of the window.

8. Choose Browser from the popup menu.

9. Paste the URL in the new window.

10. Type in the chat’s dimensions.

11. Customize any other features if needed and click on OK in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

You’ve successfully added a Twitch chat to your OBS stream using StreamLabs.

Let the Streaming Begin

Now you know how to add a stream chat on screen in your OBS window. You also know how to get a Facebook Gaming chat, add a chat overlay, and use StreamLabs to add a Twitch chat to your OBS stream. Once you have your chat and your stream in the same place, you can focus on streaming without having to go back and forth between the two windows.

Have you ever added a stream chat in your OBS window before? Did you use any of the methods we explained in this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.