Checking and keeping an eye on your Twitch logs is an absolute must for streamers so they can properly moderate their channels, stay within Twitch Terms of Service and generally build a community. Similar reasons apply to Twitch moderators.
As owners of the stream, streamers have a pretty wide variety of tools & websites available to monitor their user chat history, many of them supported by Twitch itself.
Regular users and viewers don’t own the stream, so their options are more limited, but they still have quite a few tools at their disposal.
Any Twitch user can use the TwitchDownloader program to download Twitch chat logs as .txt files from any VOD, complete with timestamps, usernames and messages. Twitch streamers & moderators can monitor chat logs by using commands such as /user, or by installing chat bots like Nightbot and Chatty that save message logs.
The rest of this article goes more in-depth and explains 6 ways of checking out Twitch chat logs and downloading them for any use you might.
How to check Twitch chat and download chat history logs
1. Use TwitchDownloader to download chat history from VODs
All Twitch users.
TwitchDownloader is a community made program that can download entire Twitch VODs, clips and even the user chat from the livestream.
It’s a little bit annoying to use, but nothing very complicated.
First, go to this link: https://github.com/lay295/TwitchDownloader/releases and download release.zip.
After this, extract release.zip to a location of your choice so that your files look like this:
After this, go back to https://github.com/lay295/TwitchDownloader/releases and download the TwitchDownloaderCLI file that matches your operating system.
In my case it’s Windows, so I downloaded TwitchDownloaderCLI-Windows-x64. If you have a Mac device, download TwitchDownloaderCLI-MacOS-x64.zip.
Extract the contents of the file in the same location where you extracted release.zip.
Once that’s done, you can begin using the program. Simply click on the TwitchDownloader icon and you’re ready to download entire Twitch chats from VODs.
To download Twitch chats, go to the Chat Downloader section.
The next steps are pretty simple. Simply copy the Twitch link to VOD/Clip in the search field, press Get Info, select file format as Text, and then choose the time interval for which you want to download the chat (hours/minutes/seconds).
TwitchDownloader will then download the entire chat in a simple .txt file that looks something like this:
Unfortunately, this method doesn’t save emojis, but it does save the entire chat log, complete with a timestamp and usernames.
As a recap:
To download & save Twitch chat history logs from VODs you have to:
- Download the TwitchDownloader program
- Copy the link of the Twitch VOD you want
- Paste the link into TwitchDownloader
- Set to save the file as .txt
- Download the .txt file of the Twitch chat log
2. Use /user and /monitor commands to see chat history by user
Streamers & Moderators only!
Streamers and broadcasters (but not viewers), can use the /user {USERNAME} and /monitor {USERNAME} commands to keep an eye on certain users.
The /user {USERNAME} command will open a user’s profile card where channel moderators and streamers can share channel-specific moderation comments, see when the user made their account, and view that user’s channel-specific chat, timeout, and ban history.
The /monitor {USERNAME} command will start monitoring a particular user’s message and prioritize them for viewing. To deactivate the command, simply use /unmonitor {USERNAME}.
3. Use Chatty to customize Twitch chat & save a message log
All Twitch users.
Download link: https://chatty.github.io/
Chatty is a small program designed to improve the life of both streamers and viewers by making the Twitch chat easier to follow and check up on.
Note: You don’t have to be a streamer for Chatty to work. Even normal viewers can use this app to keep track of a streamer’s chat and save the chat log files of any stream.
Some of Chatty’s features include:
- Customize font size
- Highlight specific people (VIPs, mods, subs, followers, specific people)
- Highlight specific words
- Highlight first message from viewers so you can say hi.
- Set different color schemes to different user types.
- Set it up to catch questions directed at you and put them in another window
- Add tags
Unfortunately, the biggest issues with Chatty is that the app is a bit annoying to use and takes a while to learn. After you’ve done this though, the benefits are fantastic since it will be a lot easier for both streamers and viewers to keep track of the chat and what everybody is saying.
Big note: If you want to use Chatty, you will have to activate the app at the same time as you start a stream (or begin watching one if you’re a viewer). Chatty cannot recover information from before you started the app.
4. Use Nightbot or other chat bots to save chat logs
Streamers & Moderators only!
Chatbots are a huge help for streamers since they make it possible to properly moderate a lively chat section.
Nightbot is one of the best Twitch chat bots, and comes with a huge variety of features. It’s easy to install, and offers, among many other tools, the ability to save chat logs for up to 2 weeks.
5. Use a smartphone or other display as a 2nd monitor
All Twitch users.
If you’re a streamer and want to check Twitch chat while streaming, then the best solution is to use a 2nd monitor, which only shows chat messages.
If you don’t want to make the investment to buy a 2nd monitor just for chat, consider using your smartphone or even a table instead.
You don’t even have to do anything fancy in your streaming software. Just put the smartphone on a stand or something, go to your stream, and activate the “Chat Only” feature in the settings.
If you do have a second monitor, then look into your streaming software to see how you can create a window for the Twitch chat and then move that window to the second monitor.
This 2 monitor setup is super common in the streaming world. Truth be told, 2 monitors is incredibly useful for pretty much any type PC activity, be it gaming, work or anything else.
6. Setup your chat as an overlay only the Streamer can see
Streamers & Moderators only!
If you have a big monitor with a lot of screenspace, then one option is to put up a chat overlay directly over your game.
There are two ways you can do this.
The first is through Twitch itself. Twitch offers an in-game overlay feature only the streamer can see and not the viewers. This overlay also allows you to customize what information is shown, including chat logs, view count, activity feed etc.
This way you can have both the chat and the game on the same screen and keeping track of it all should be really easy, at the cost of cluttering up your screen a bit.
The second option is to setup your streaming software (OBS Studio, Streamlabs etc.) so it displays the chat section in a way both you and your viewers can see.
The majority of streamers don’t do this, but it’s sufficiently popular that Twitch viewers are comfortable with the setup.