Discord: What Is Streamer Mode

In recent years, Discord became one of the most popular social platforms for the gaming community, so it was a matter of time before this tool started integrating with various other gaming platforms and tools. Most recently, it integrated with streaming services.

Any player can become a content creator by streaming their gaming session to other viewers, thus creating their own little fan base and community. However, as the streaming population grows, so do the relevant safety concerns.

This is why Discord launched its streaming mode, with the goal of keeping accidental flashes of sensitive data to a minimum level. Read this article to find out more about Discord’s Streamer mode.

What Is Streamer Mode?

When you’re streaming your video game session, you are projecting the content of your screen to the viewers’ display. If there is no tool to regulate the content that appears on your fans’ screens, some sensitive data may slip and cause a lot of problems.

For example, imagine streaming a game to hundreds of viewers, when suddenly a message notification pops up. All the people watching the stream will be able to see the content of your message, take a quick screenshot, and abuse the information. Strangers could get access to the names of your real-life friends or family members, street addresses, phone numbers, etc.

To prevent leaks of personal or sensitive data, Streamer mode will hide all of this information from your fans.

What Information Can Streamer Mode Hide?

Going into Streamer mode can hide four types of sensitive data – personal information, instant invite links, sounds, and notifications.

1. Hide Personal Information: This option will block others from seeing your email, linked accounts, and discord tags.
2. Hide Instant Invite Links: When you enable this, your viewers won’t be able to see invite codes that are displayed in the Invites tab of the Server settings. If any invite code suddenly flashes on your screen, your viewers will only see ‘Streamer mode’ displayed instead of the code.
3. Disable Sounds: This will disable all the sounds coming from the Discord app (channel join, notification sounds), and some desktop notification sounds too.
4. Disable Notifications: This option blocks all Discord notifications and desktop notifications from appearing on the viewer’s screen.

How to Enable Streamer Mode

Enabling Streamer mode consists of a few steps. First, you need to integrate Discord with one of your streaming platforms such as Twitch or YouTube. Then, you should enable the OBS overlay, and finally enable Streamer mode. In the end, you can add some extra third-party apps to help you in your streaming career.

Step 1: Integration

If you haven’t already started your Discord streaming career, the first thing that you should do is integrate your streaming platform with this tool. To do this, you need to:

1. Click on the User Settings menu (gear icon) at the bottom of the window.
   
2. Hit the Connections tab.
   
3. Go to the Server Settings.
4. Click on the Integrations menu.
   
5. Choose the platforms that you want to sync your Discord account with.
6. Tick the ‘Sync’ box next to the platform.

Step 2: Enabling OBS

The Open Broadcasting Software (OBS) is a freeware streaming kit that can integrate with Discord. Once you set it up, you can easily customize it to connect your Discord chat to the stream, play your Discord voice chat, and so on.

To do this, you just need to download and install the app. Then the OBS will notify you that it wants to gain access to certain aspects of your Discord client. When you approve, you’ll be able to edit the overlay in any way that suits you.

Alternatively, Discord is also compatible with the Xsplit stream kit if you prefer that over OBS.

Step 3: Enabling Streamer Mode

Once you’ve set up everything that you need for streaming, it’s time to block all the sensitive data. To enable streamer mode, you should:

1. Go to User Settings.
2. Find the Streamer Mode tab.
3. Tick the ‘Enable Streamer Mode’ option under the Streamer Mode section.

If you’re using OBS or Xsplit, selecting the ‘Automatically Enable/Disable’ option will always turn on Streamer mode when these kits launch, so you shouldn’t worry about forgetting to hide sensitive data or compromising your privacy.

By clicking the ‘keybind settings’ option, you can set up a designated keyboard key that will automatically turn on Streaming mode.

Optional: Third-Party Apps

When you enable Streaming mode, you can add extra third party apps using the same Integrations menu from the first step.

For example, you may want to add a ‘Nightbot’ to moderate your chat, and it can sync with the Discord bot that moderates your chat. There’s also the Muxy extension, which is essentially a Twitch extension that connects to your Discord server. You can alert your viewers when you go live, show analytics of your stream, and post subscriber messages on your Discord chat.

Stream Safely

Thanks to Discord’s Streamer mode, you can play any game without worrying about your personal data falling into the wrong hands.

The ‘enable automatically’ option will add an extra layer to your security, and integration with various widgets can help you have a carefree streaming experience.

Did you ever have some sensitive information accidentally leak during a live streaming session? If so, how did you handle it? Share your experience in the comments below.