This article covers Go Live and Screen Share in DMs and voice channels on the desktop client. For more information on how to start a video call check out our Video Calls article. If you have questions about screen sharing on a mobile device, please review our [Mobile] Screenshare FAQ article.

What this article covers:

What is Go Live and Screen Share?

Go Live and Screen Share allows you to screen share any application window, or your entire screen in a server or voice call. Up to 50 people can share their video or screen at a time in a voice channel.

How do I Share my Screen with Go Live?

Here is how to Screen Share and Go Live in a Discord server:

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 an individual application window to share, or select an entire screen to share.

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

- 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.

When you start your screen share, you’ll see an option that says Hide stream preview, which controls whether users will or will not be able to see a preview of your stream before joining. If you check the box next to it, this will disable Stream Previews. If it’s unchecked, then the Stream Preview will display 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.

How do I watch a Stream?

Chances are, you’ve seen the “Go Live” badge to the right of your friend's username.

That badge indicates the user is streaming and if you click on their username in the voice channel, you’ll see the option to watch the stream.

1. Check any voice channels for someone with a Go Live icon and join the voice channel with them.

2. You can double tap the username to automatically join the live stream or you can tap on the username and then tap on Watch Stream.

3. Once you've joined, you can then change the size and location of your viewing window and adjust the stream’s audio from the volume icon while hovering over the stream.

If you just want to chat, you can join a voice channel as you normally would without spectating the stream. Additionally, Go Live streams have a maximum of 50 concurrent viewers (50 viewers, plus the broadcaster).

Troubleshooting for a Go Live Viewer

Joining another voice channel will disconnect you from the Go Live session and the stream will disappear! You can only view one stream, within one voice channel at a time.

No Audio

If you’re not hearing any audio while watching a stream and you’ve already checked to make sure the correct device is selected in Discord, next you want to make sure you do not have the stream muted on accident. Here’s how:

1. While viewing the stream, right click on the stream window and you should see the option Mute and Stream Volume.

2. If Mute is checked, make sure to uncheck it so the stream isn’t muted anymore!

3. If the stream isn’t muted, try adjusting the Stream Volume slider to see if that helps any.

Stream is Lagging

If the stream you are watching is lagging, try asking the person streaming if they’re able to adjust any of their Stream Quality settings to see if that helps.

If you’re still having any issues while viewing a stream, please reach out to our support team here: https://dis.gd/contact

Go Live: Pop Out

We also included a Pop Out feature to suit your browsing needs. With the Pop Out feature, you'll be able to open the stream to a separate window.

The Pop Out icon looks like this:

The Pop Out window can be resized to whatever size you’d like it to be.

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.

We hope you enjoy Go Live - Screen Share and if you have any suggestions on how to improve the feature, please share your ideas here: https://dis.gd/feedback

If you have any questions or run into any issues, please make sure to hit up our support team here: https://dis.gd/contact