How to Stream on Discord

 It is always a great way to share your gameplay, presentations, or any other content in real time with your friends or community streaming on Discord. With Discord, you’ll be able to share your screen during voice calls, stream your favorite game, or put on a live session whenever you want. In this we show you how get started, and advanced settings of using Discord for streaming.

Introduction

As streaming has become a part of online communication, Discord’s Go Live and Screen Share features have made it easier than ever to share what you see. Whether it’s a live event or gaming experience, the simple way you can go live on discord is always with the intuitive interface.

In this article, you’ll learn the step-by-step process of how to stream on Discord and explore essential tips to enhance your streaming experience.

What is Go Live and Screen Share?

Go Live and Screen Share are features in Discord that allow users to stream their entire screen or a specific application to their friends or server members. Up to 50 people can join and view your stream in a voice channel, making it an ideal platform for group events, team meetings, or casual hangouts.

How do I Share my Screen with Go Live?

Here’s how you can start sharing your screen on Discord:

1. Join a Voice Channel:
   • First, ensure you have permission to share your screen in the server’s voice channel.
   • Join any voice channel you want to stream in.
2. Tap on the Screen Icon:
   • Once you’re in the voice channel, click on the screen streaming icon located near the bottom-left corner of the voice status panel.
   • A new pop-up window will appear, giving you streaming options.
3. Select What to Share:
   • You’ll have the option to either share your entire screen or a specific application window. Select the desired content.
4. Click on Go Live:
   • Once you’ve selected what you want to share, click the “Go Live” button at the bottom of the window to begin streaming.

- At this time, audio sharing is available when sharing an application window on Windows 10 or MacOS version 10.13 or later. You can enable MacOS audio sharing following this guide here. 
- Unfortunately, audio sharing is unavailable on Linux.

How do I Share my Game?

To share your game it needs to be recognized by our built-in game detection system. 

If the game does not appear, try manually adding your game by going to User Settings > Game Activity > Add it.
Unfortunately, if your game is not recognized by Game Detection, or through the process of manually adding it, then you will not be able to stream the game.

Option 1

1. Join a voice channel in your server that you have permissions to screen share in.

2. Tap on the Screen streaming icon in the voice status panel (near the bottom left corner) and a new window will pop out.

3. Select the individual app for the game that you want to stream.

4. Tap the "Go Live" button at the bottom of the window when you are ready to share your stream. 

Option 2

1. While in a Voice Channel with the game you want to stream open tap on the Stream icon to stream your game

2. Here you can pick the Voice Channel you want to stream to (if you’re not already in one) and change any of the stream settings (quality and framerate) and tap on Go Live to stream

You should see a small Picture-in-Picture (PiP) window of the game you're sharing so you can view how it looks. Hovering over the PiP will give you options to adjust the stream’s settings or end the stream.

The PiP window will be automatically paused once you have the game in focus.

Sharing Your Game Using Overlay

You can also share your game through the Discord overlay.

1. While your game is open, toggle your Discord overlay by tapping on the hot key (shift+` for default).

2. Then tap on Stream and choose what settings you’d like to use

3. Finally, tap on Go Live to start the stream

If someone is watching your stream, you’ll see a little eyeball icon 👁 next to their name in the overlay.

How do I share my screen in a Direct Message? 

To share your screen in a Direct Message (DM), you'll want to start a call first. You can do this by tapping the phone or video icon in the top header while viewing a DM.

1. Tap on the Share Your Screen icon to start streaming in a DM.

2. Next, pick either the Application you want to stream or what Screen you’d like to share. To pick, tap on what you’d like to share.

3. Finally, you can pick what settings you’d like to stream with. Tap on Go Live when you’re ready to stream.

If you want to swap from one app window to another, you’ll be able to easily swap by selecting the "Change Window" option!

Stream Quality Settings

- All users can stream up to 720p/30fps.
- Nitro Classic subscribers have access to 1080p/60fps.
- And Nitro subscribers can go all the way up to 4k/60fps.

The frame rate and resolution of your stream can be adjusted from multiple different places.

Regardless if you're sharing your screen in a Direct Message or a server voice channel, you can always change your Stream Quality by selecting the "Screen" button above your status bar. 

When streaming through browser, you can not adjust the stream’s quality.

Stream Quality Settings For Go Live

While streaming, you can adjust the stream quality at any time. 

1. While sharing your screen in a server’s voice channel hover over your PiP and tap on the gear icon

2. Next, select Stream Quality

3. Here you can change the Frame Rate and Resolution.

Stream Quality Settings For Direct Messages 

Here is how to edit your stream quality while streaming through a Direct Message.

1. While streaming in a Direct Message tap on the down arrow. 

2. Next, tap on Stream Quality.

3. Now you can adjust your Frame Rate and Resolution. 

View Modes

 Grid View 

All calls will automatically start in this view. This is the perfect view to see all the videos/screenshares within your chat at once.

Focus View

If you’d like to focus on one specific person, you can then use this view to make their screen the center of attention. The focused screen will show as the largest screen while everyone else’s screen will show up as smaller screens at the bottom.

You can also hide the streams of the other Server Video Members (by tapping on the 

 

 Hide Members button within the focused stream) while in the Focus View to only show the main screen you’re focusing on. That way, you won’t get distracted by anyone else’s screen.

If you want to change which screen you’re focusing on, you can tap on the 

 

 Show Members to show all the smaller streams once more and then select the other person’s screen.

Window Modes

  Pop Out Views

To have the video chat all appear in a separate window, tap the Pop Out View button to be able to move that window anywhere on your screen.

If you want to pin the Pop Out window so that it stays above all other windows, you can use the Stay On Top button. To unpin the window, use the Remove from Top button. 

  Full Screen View 

Last but not least, tap the Full Screen button if you want to maximize the video size on your screen.

Audio Sharing

Note: Currently audio can only be captured by the Windows desktop, MacOS desktop, Chrome browser, and mobile clients. You cannot share your application's audio on other browsers or Linux. 

Go Live: Server Permissions

The ability to share your screen in a voice channel is enabled by default.  

The ability to Screen Share on a channel is locked behind the Video permission. If you are the server owner or have Administrator permissions, you can directly edit these permissions to give certain server members the power to stream.

For a Specific Role 

1. Tap on Server Settings and then the Roles tab.

2. Select the specific role you’d like to edit this permission for. 

3. Scroll down the permissions list, down to Voice Channel Permissions, then enable Video in order to allow that role to stream in the server.

For a Specific Channel 

1. You can also customize this permission on the channel level by right-clicking your 

 voice channel and tapping on Edit Channel. 

2. Next, tap on Permissions and then scroll down to Voice Channel Permissions

3. Under Video, you can enable or disable the ability for any specific role to stream under this selected voice channel.

How to Enable or Disable Stream Preview

If you do not want other members of the server to be able to see a preview of the stream (unless already watching the stream), this setting can be enabled or disabled at any time. There are 2 ways to do this.

Desktop/Browser

Option 1

1. Tap on the cogwheel [] in the bottom-left corner to access User Settings then head to Voice & Video.

2. Scroll down until you see Stream Previews. Press the toggle button to the right of this setting, to enable or disable it.

• Check mark means the setting is enabled
• X means the setting is disabled

Option 2

This setting is per-stream and will default to your global setting. If you want to make a different choice than your global setting you will have to change this setting each time.

Next time you begin your screen share you’ll see a toggle in the top right called Hide stream preview and will control whether users will or won’t be able to see a preview of your stream before joining.. However if you choose to check the box to the right of it, then Stream Previews will be disabled! Then if it’s not checked then the Stream Preview will appear for all server members.

Mobile

There is only one option for disabling or enabling this setting on mobile.

1. Tap your avatar in the bottom-right corner and then tap on the cogwheel [

] in the top-right corner.

2. Tap on Voice. 

3. Then scroll down until you see Stream Previews. Here you can toggle the setting to enable or disable it.

• Check mark means the setting is enabled
• X means the setting is disabled

4. If enabled, the next time you screen share to Discord on your mobile device the stream preview will be disabled.

Conclusion

You'll find powerful streaming capabilities in Discord regardless of whether you want to present just a few slides or stream your gameplay. Discord can do all of that, and more: you can set stream quality and stream it across servers and direct messages. With the above steps in hand, you can start sharing your screen and enriching your interaction with your friends or broader community.

How to Stream on Discord - FAQs

Q1. Can I stream my screen not being in a voice channel?

You can’t share your screen in a server unless it's a voice channel.

Q2. To how many people can they watch my stream?

You can have up to 50 people at the same time watching your stream in a voice channel.

Q3. Can I play audio with my stream?

You can share audio even when streaming an app on Windows 10 or macOS (version 10.13+). But Linux doesn’t support audio sharing.

Q4. Why can’t I put the game I’m streaming on Discord?

If discord’s game detection system doesn’t detect your game, manually add your game to User Settings > Game Activity. server.

Q5. How to improve Stream quality on Discord?

The stream settings let you change the stream resolution and frame rate. Higher resolution like 4K/1080p is only available for Nitro subscribers.

With these steps, you’re now ready to share your screen or stream your gameplay on Discord effortlessly!