The steps

Works with your software

An overlay is just a web page, so it drops into any streaming app that has a browser source (sometimes called a web source). That covers the popular ones:

• OBS Studio and Streamlabs Desktop: add a Browser source.
• Meld Studio: add a Web source.
• Most other broadcasters and hardware encoders with a browser or web source.

The steps below use OBS-style wording since it is the most common, but the idea is the same everywhere: paste the URL, match the size.

Add the browser source

https://overlaything.com/o/0175b70483…eae8b2ba38c

Recommended source settings

The exact names vary between apps, but the equivalents are worth setting:

Creating an overlay

Hit New overlay, give it a name, and pick a resolution. You can choose 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, or set a custom size in pixels. Overlays start blank, so the next step is adding widgets.

The gallery

Each card shows a live thumbnail, the overlay name, its resolution, how many layers it has, and when it was last edited. You can switch between grid and list view, search by name, sort, and filter by resolution or by which overlays are currently live on your stream.

From a card you can:

• Edit: open the overlay in the editor.
• Copy overlay URL: grab the browser source link without opening the editor.
• Duplicate: make a full copy, including every widget and all their variations. The copy gets its own URL, so your live overlay is never touched.
• Rename and Regenerate URL from the card menu.
• Delete: removes the overlay, with a few seconds to undo if you change your mind.

One overlay or many?

You can run a single overlay across every scene, or build a dedicated overlay per scene and add each as its own browser source. Both are common. Pick whichever keeps your scene list tidy.

The canvas

A true-to-size preview of your overlay, transparent like it will be on stream. Drag widgets to move them, pull the handles to resize, and zoom in for fine work. Turn on the grid and snapping from the canvas controls to keep things aligned. Hold a modifier and click to select more than one widget at a time.

The layers panel

Every widget is a layer. Reorder by dragging: higher in the list sits on top. Each layer has quick toggles:

• Visibility: hide a layer in the editor without deleting it.
• Lock: freeze a layer so you do not nudge it by accident.
• Rename: useful once you have a dozen widgets.

Select a few widgets and group them so they move together. Groups can be nested.

The inspector

Select a widget and the right panel fills with its controls. What you see depends on the widget, but the common tabs are:

Text widgets can be edited right on the canvas. Double-click one to type, format the text, and drop in tokens like {latest_follower} that fill in live.

Saving and testing

Edits save as you go, the topbar shows when it is saving and when everything is saved. There is no separate publish step: because your edits save automatically, your overlay URL always serves your latest work.

How it stays in sync

Your edits save automatically, and the overlay URL renders whatever is saved. So there is no draft-versus-published split to manage: change something in the editor and connected browser sources update in place, usually within a second or two, no refresh required. The Save button in the topbar simply flushes any pending changes immediately rather than waiting for the next autosave.

Anatomy of an overlay URL

https://overlaything.com/o/0175b70483…eae8b2ba38c
                           └ the private token, unique to this overlay

The token is a long random string, unique to that overlay and impossible to guess. It is the only thing your streaming software needs.

Regenerating a URL

If a URL ever leaks (you showed it on stream by accident, say), open the overlay menu and choose Regenerate URL. A fresh token is issued and the old link stops working. Re-paste the new URL into your browser source once.

One at a time

Open Overlay settings (the gear in the editor topbar). The main switch is Play alerts one at a time. With it on, a new alert waits for the current one to finish its animation, sound and text to speech before it plays.

Timing

Which alerts queue

You can choose which event types go through the queue. By default subs, cheers, raids, tips, redemptions and shoutouts queue, while follows play instantly (they are frequent and light). Any type you leave unchecked skips the queue and fires immediately, even while another alert is on screen.

What it does

One bot, many parts. Each part (a "module") can be switched on or off on its own from the Chatbot page in your dashboard.

How it fits together

The shared bot account

OverlayThing runs a single shared bot account that joins your chat to post replies, run timers and moderate. You do not create or manage a separate bot login. When you enable the chatbot, that account joins your channel; when you disable it, the account leaves and says nothing.

Turn it on

The command prefix

The prefix is the character viewers type before a command. The default is the exclamation mark, so a command called uptime is run by typing !uptime. You can change it to any of these from Bot settings:

Starter commands

The first time you enable the bot it seeds a set of ready-to-use default commands like !commands, !uptime, !followage and !so. Edit them, disable the ones you do not want, or delete them. They are only ever added once, so deleting one sticks.

Custom commands

A command is a trigger plus a response. Type the trigger in chat (with your prefix) and the bot posts the response. The response can mix your own words with variables that fill in live.

Trigger:  !discord
Response: Join the $(channel) Discord at discord.gg/yourcode

Variables make a command dynamic. A !uptime command whose response is $(channel) has been live for $(uptime) posts the real elapsed time every time.

Default commands

You start with a set of commands already made for you. They are normal commands you can edit, disable or delete.

Keywords and match types

Most commands match the first word of a message (a prefix command). A keyword command instead watches the whole message and fires when it matches a pattern, no prefix needed. Each keyword has a match type:

Regex, plainly

A regular expression is a mini pattern language for "does this text look like X". You do not need it for most keywords, contains and starts cover the common cases. When you do, a few pieces go a long way:

What wins when several could match

One message fires at most one command. A prefix command (or one of its aliases) always beats a keyword. Only when no prefix command matches does the bot check keywords, in order, and the first match wins.

Permissions (user levels)

Each command has a who can use it level. A viewer must be at that level or higher to run it.

If a viewer below the level tries a command, the bot simply stays quiet.

Cooldowns

Cooldowns stop a command being spammed. There are two, and both can be set on the same command:

By default mods and you bypass cooldowns entirely (you can turn that off in Bot settings). When someone hits a cooldown the bot either stays silent or posts a short "wait Ns" reply, your choice in Bot settings.

Aliases

Give a command extra trigger words that do the same thing. A !commands command with aliases cmds and help answers all three. Aliases share the command response, permission and cooldowns, and they cannot collide with another command trigger.

Public list visibility

Each command has a show in public list toggle. Public commands appear on your shareable command page at overlaything.com/c/yourname (built-in module commands from Queue, Quotes, Counters, Music and a live giveaway keyword show there too). Turn it off for internal or mod-only commands you would rather not advertise.

How variables work

Write a token anywhere in a command response and the bot replaces it before posting. They combine freely with your own text.

Welcome $(user)! $(channel) has been live for $(uptime).

If a token has no value (or names something that does not exist) it simply renders as nothing, so a small typo never breaks the reply.

Tokens that target a user

A few tokens describe a person and accept an optional @mention. With no mention they describe the viewer who ran the command; with one, they describe that user. These are $(followage), $(watchtime) and $(accountage).

!followage          → your own follow age
!followage @cohh    → @cohh's follow age

Other arg-taking tokens read what the viewer typed: $(touser) is the first word after the command, $(query) is everything after it, and $(random 1-6) / $(pick a;b;c) take their own inline options.

Full reference

Every available variable, grouped by what it relates to. Tokens shown as $(count.<name>) or $(api.<field>) take a name or field you supply.

User

Channel & Stream

Date & Time

Loyalty

Quotes

Counters

Queue

Media Requests

League of Legends

API & Advanced

Conditionals

The block form

Wrap part of a response in an $(if …) block. The bot evaluates the condition and posts only the branch that matches. An $(else) is optional, and every block ends with $(endif).

$(if CONDITION)shown when true$(else)shown when false$(endif)

Blocks can nest, so an $(else) branch can hold another $(if …) for a chain of cases.

Writing the condition

A condition is a boolean expression. Combine smaller checks with and, or and not, and group with parentheses. Precedence runs not first, then and, then or, so subscribed and tier >= 2 or mod reads as "(subscribed and tier 2+) or mod". Use parentheses any time you want a different grouping.

subscribed and (tier >= 2 or mod)

Comparisons

Either side of a comparison can be a token like $(followers), a named operand like tier, a number, or a "quoted string". Text values must be quoted. Equality is == (a lone = is accepted as a friendly alias), inequality is !=, and the numeric comparisons are >, >=, < and <=. String comparisons are case-insensitive, so "Just Chatting" and "just chatting" match.

Truthiness: a bare operand with no comparison is true when it is a true flag, a non-zero number, or a non-empty string that is not 0 or false. Coercion: when both sides of a comparison look like numbers they compare as numbers, otherwise they compare as text, so $(count) > 100 works even though tokens arrive as strings.

What you can check

Conditions can read viewer status (subscribed, tier, mod, vip, follower, first_time), channel state (live, hour, uptime), and any $( … ) variable. The full list of named operands, with each one's type and meaning, appears in the Conditionals section of the variable reference.

Examples

Start simple. Compare a token to text (the = alias is shown here) to greet one specific viewer:

$(if $(user) = "ninja")the king has arrived 👑$(else)welcome $(user)!$(endif)

Check a viewer's tier exactly, with a nested fallback for any other sub:

$(if tier == 3)Tier 3 legend, thank you!$(else)$(if subscribed)thanks for subbing!$(else)hi $(user)$(endif)$(endif)

Compare one token against another, here a shouted-out channel's follower count against your own:

$(if $(touser.followers) > $(followers))$(touser) is bigger than us, go follow!$(else)show $(touser) some love$(endif)

Match the current category by name:

$(if $(game) == "Just Chatting")grab a seat and chat!$(endif)

Reward loyal subs, and nudge everyone else:

hi $(user), $(if subscribed)because you're a loyal sub you get priority!$(else)if you were subbed you'd have a much better chance!$(endif)

Unlock a perk for Tier 2 and above:

$(if tier >= 2)Tier 2+ perk unlocked for $(user)!$(endif)

Welcome a first-time chatter:

$(if first_time)Welcome to the stream, $(user)! 🎉$(else)wb $(user)$(endif)

Show a hint only your mods can see:

$(if mod)Mod tools: !timeout !clip !title$(endif)

Run a free, no-API jackpot that hits roughly ten percent of the time:

$(if $(random 1-100) <= 10)💰 JACKPOT $(user)!$(else)no luck, try again$(endif)

Greet by time of day:

$(if hour >= 18)Good evening$(else)Good day$(endif), $(user)!

Gate a reply on whether you are live:

$(if live)We're live for $(uptime)!$(else)Currently offline, see you next stream.$(endif)

Combine several checks in one condition:

$(if subscribed and tier >= 2 or mod)VIP lane$(else)standard queue$(endif)

Shoutouts

A rich shoutout pulls everything about the last person mentioned. The viewer types the command followed by a name, and $(touser) resolves that channel along with its profile fields.

Go follow $(touser) at $(touser.url). Last seen playing $(touser.game) with $(touser.followers) followers!

A live-aware shoutout reads the target's stream state, so the wording changes depending on whether they are live right now.

$(touser) is currently $(touser.status). Check them out: $(touser.url)

Weather

Fully plug-and-play, no API key required. It uses wttr.in, a free weather service. Make a new command, turn on API call, and copy these exact settings in. A viewer types !weather London and gets a one-line forecast back.

API URL:        https://wttr.in/$(querystring)?format=3
Method:         GET
Response type:  Text
Response text:  $(api)

That returns the whole line ready-made, for example London: ⛅️ +12°C. Want to word it yourself? Switch the response type to JSON and read fields by path:

API URL:        https://wttr.in/$(querystring)?format=j1
Response type:  JSON
Response text:  $(query): $(api.current_condition.0.weatherDesc.0.value), $(api.current_condition.0.temp_C)°C (feels $(api.current_condition.0.FeelsLikeC)°C)

Random fun

A magic 8-ball picks one answer at random each time with $(pick a;b;c).

🎱 $(pick yes;no;maybe;ask again later)

A damage roll combines the runner, a target and a random number in one line.

$(user) hits $(touser) for $(random 1-100) damage!

Counters

A death counter reads a named counter with $(count.<name>). Bump it elsewhere (a hotkey or a separate command) and this line always reflects the current total.

$(channel) has died $(count.deaths) times this stream.

League of Legends

Look up a fixed player's rank with the Riot integration. Pass a Riot ID and region, or swap in $(query) to let viewers ask about anyone.

$(touser) is ranked $(lol.rank Faker#KR1 kr)

Channel status

A quick status line mixes your title and follower count into one reply.

$(channel) is $(status), $(followers) followers.

Built-in mod commands

These are not responses you configure: !marker and !poll are built-in commands your mods type straight into chat. Drop a stream marker at the current moment with an optional label.

!marker clutch play

Or start a Twitch poll with a question, semicolon-separated choices, and a duration in seconds.

!poll "Next game?" Mario;Zelda;Metroid 120

The idea

An API command calls a URL when the command runs, then drops the result into the response with the $(api) token. Turn on API call on a command and fill in the request.

Reading the response

How you read the result depends on the response type:

• Text: $(api) is the whole response body, cleaned to a single line.
• JSON with a field path: $(api) is the value at your configured path.
• JSON, ad-hoc field: $(api.some.field) pulls any field by path, even array indexes like $(api.results.0.name).

Using viewer input safely

To let a viewer pass an argument into the URL, use $(querystring), which URL-encodes whatever they typed. Never use the raw $(query) in a URL: a space or symbol would break the request, and unescaped input is a risk.

Worked example: a weather command

A viewer types !weather London and gets the temperature back.

API URL:      https://api.example.com/weather?q=$(querystring)
Response:     JSON
Field path:   current.temp_c
Response text: $(touser) it is $(api)°C right now

Worked example: a value from your own service

Suppose you run a small service that returns plain text, like a current giveaway count.

API URL:      https://api.example.com/players/online
Response:     Text
Response text: Players online right now: $(api)

Authentication

When an API needs a key, choose a scheme and paste the secret. The secret is encrypted at rest and never shown back to you or posted in chat.

League of Legends (Riot Games)

When the Riot integration is enabled for the platform, three League tokens become available in your commands. They look up a player by Riot ID and region and post a live ranked summary.

The arguments

Each token takes a Riot ID and a region. The Riot ID is the in-game name, a #, and the tag line. The region is the last word.

Name#Tag REGION

Faker#KR1 kr
Doublelift#NA1 na

Supported regions include na, euw, eun, kr, jp, oc, br, la1, la2, tr and ru.

Examples

Trigger:  !rank
Response: $(lol.rank Faker#KR1 kr)

In chat:  GOLD II (45 LP) - 30W/22L 57.7%

Trigger:  !recent
Response: $(lol.recent Faker#KR1 kr)

In chat:  ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌ | Wins/Losses today: 2W/1L (66.7%)

Timers

Post recurring messages on a schedule: rules, socials, a sponsor plug. Each timer posts after its interval (in minutes) once at least a minimum number of chat lines have passed since its last post, so it never talks to an empty room. Give a timer several messages and it rotates through them. Choose whether it runs only while you are live or always.

Counters

Track a number from chat: deaths, wins, anything. Each counter gets up to four trigger words for show, add, subtract and set, and you decide who can change it.

Show:  !deaths        → "deaths is now 7"
Add:   !death         → bumps it up by one
Sub:   !undodeath     → backs it down
Set:   !setdeaths 0   → mods only

You can write a custom reply (with $(count) and $(count.name)), or use a different message per verb. The value is also readable from any command with $(count.deaths).

Quotes

A searchable quote book your chat builds with you. Recall a random quote, or a specific one by number.

Pull a quote into any command with $(quote), or its parts with $(quote.text), $(quote.author) and $(quote.id).

Chat alerts

Post a chat message when someone follows, subs, resubs, gifts, cheers or raids, in step with your overlay alerts. Each event has its own message and an optional threshold (for example, only greet raids of 3+ viewers, or cheers over a bits amount).

Thanks for the {bits} bits, {name}! 🎉

Welcome

Greet people automatically. Three independent pieces:

You set the message for each, and can tag the person by name. Returning-regular has a streak count (how many streams makes a "regular") and a re-greet gap (hours of quiet before you greet them again).

Giveaways

Run a giveaway and draw a winner from chat. Two modes:

Set the prize, who can enter (everyone, followers, subscribers, VIPs and mods), and weighting (give subs more luck, or weight by watch time). Keyword giveaways can auto-draw after a number of minutes, or you draw manually. You can re-roll if the winner is absent, and a draw can fire a giveaway alert on your overlay. Exclude specific names from ever winning.

Queue

Let viewers line up to play with you. They !join, you pull people up with !next. Viewer commands (join, leave, check position, bump yourself down, list) and mod commands (next, clear, open, close) all have configurable trigger words.

Read queue state in commands with $(queue.current), $(queue.next), $(queue.count), $(queue.list) and $(queue.position).

Media requests (song requests)

Viewers request YouTube songs by name or link and the bot builds a play queue. Playback happens either in a dashboard tab or on a dedicated overlay you add to your stream, with a now-playing card.

Set who can request (everyone up to subscribers), a max song length, how many requests one person can hold, duplicate blocking, and a fallback playlist that plays when no requests are queued. Read state with $(media.current), $(media.next), $(media.queue) and $(media.count).

Loyalty (watch time)

Track how long your viewers watch. The bot accrues watch time for people present in chat, which surfaces your most loyal regulars and powers the $(watchtime) token and the Welcome module's returning-regular greeting. You can choose to count only while you are live, and optionally only for people who actually chat (not silent lurkers).

Command API and Copy-URL (Stream Deck and hotkeys)

Most things the bot does can also be fired from outside chat, from a Stream Deck button, a hotkey tool, or any device that can open a URL. Across the chatbot dashboard you will find Copy URL menus that give you a private link which, when opened, runs that command or module action exactly as if it were typed in chat.

These links cover custom commands, counter verbs, queue and song-request actions, and giveaway start/draw/reroll/finish. They are authorized by your channel API token, so keep them private and reset the token if one ever leaks.

Bot presence

You do not manage where the bot is. When you enable the chatbot it joins your chat; when you disable it, it leaves. Connection status (connected, offline, blocked) is shown on the Chatbot page and in Bot settings, where a Force reconnect button is available if you ever need it.

Chat filters

Automatic spam protection you turn on filter by filter. Each filter has its own action and timeout, and exempts mods and you by default.

Per filter you set the action (delete the message, time the user out, ban) and the timeout length, plus an optional chat warning with a {user} placeholder. A channel-wide silent mode suppresses those warnings while still enforcing.

Banned words

Keep a list of words and phrases the bot acts on in live chat, each with its own action (timeout or ban). This is separate from the overlay-display banned-word list, it is about enforcing in chat, not redacting on screen.

Test mode

Turn on mod test mode and a message from you or a mod that would be actioned is left alone, with the bot instead replying to name the rule that would have fired. It lets you tune filters and banned words live without timing anyone out.

Mod log

Every automated and manual moderation action is recorded in the Mod Log: what happened, to whom, why, and when. It is searchable and exportable, so you can review a timeout or settle a dispute after the fact.

Prefix

The character before a command (!, &, ~ or -). Commands are stored prefix-free, so changing it applies everywhere at once. See Getting started.

Reply style

How the bot formats a reply to a command:

Reply style only applies to replies triggered by a chat command. Event-driven posts (timers, chat alerts, raid shout-outs) always post plain.

Cooldown behavior

Timezone and date format

Set the timezone and date format the bot uses for the $(time) and $(date) variables, so a !time command shows your local time and dates read the way you expect.

Connection

Bot settings also shows connection health and a Force reconnect button. Use it if the bot ever looks stuck after you have confirmed it is enabled and a moderator.

What it is

Remote Control connects your OverlayThing dashboard to the streaming software running on your machine. Once it is setup you (or your mod(s) of choice) can run actions like switch scene, mute, unmute audio, show or hide a source, and start or stop recording or streaming, without the streamer needing to do all the work.

You wire up those actions once in the dashboard, then fire each one three ways: a chat !command your community (or just your mods) can run, a button on the Remote Control page, or a hotkey URL you put on a Stream Deck or a keyboard macro. There is nothing to script and nothing to install beyond a single source in your streaming software.

Get connected

Pick the software you stream with and follow the short setup:

• Connect OBS Studio | add a dock or browser source, turn on the WebSocket, enter the port and password.
• Connect Meld Studio | add the blank source to every scene, no password needed.

Once a provider is connected, head to Bindings & triggers to wire up actions, and read Security & access before you put a URL on a Stream Deck.

It looks after itself

Remote Control reconnects on its own if OBS or Meld restarts or your connection drops, and it updates itself in the background when we ship improvements. You do not need to refresh anything or re-add the source.

Set it up

Next steps

Before you share or save anything, read Security & access | your OBS password and URL both deserve care. Then build Bindings & triggers to wire up actions.

Set it up

Next steps

Next, read Security & access before putting your URL anywhere, then build Bindings & triggers.

Actions

An action is a single thing to do in OBS or Meld: switch a scene, show or hide a source, mute or unmute an input, set a volume or gain, start or stop recording or streaming, and more. Source and layer pickers are scoped to the scene you choose, so you only see what lives in that scene.

Triggers

Every binding fires from one of three triggers:

1. A !command in chat, with a who can use it picker so you choose exactly which roles (Broadcaster, Moderator, VIPs, Subs, or Everyone) are allowed to run it, plus an optional cooldown so it cannot be spammed. You can always run your own commands.
2. A dashboard button on the Remote Control page that you press yourself.
3. A hotkey URL you can copy onto a Stream Deck button or a keyboard macro to fire the binding without opening anything.

Several actions at once

A binding can run several actions in a row, for example mute your mic and hide a source and then switch to your "Be right back" scene. A binding can include at most one scene switch, and the scene switch always runs last, so the rest of your changes are in place before the new scene comes up.

Commands you create register in your bot command list as read-only, managed by Remote Control, so they can never clash with your other commands.

Two things to keep safe

Who can do what

Dashboard buttons and hotkey URLs are yours to press. Chat commands run only for the roles you allow in each binding's who can use it picker, so you can hand !brb to your mods without opening anything else up. See Bindings & triggers for the per-command roles.

Adding a widget

In the editor, open the widget picker and choose what to add. It drops onto the canvas ready to style. Alerts are unique per overlay, so each overlay has at most one Subscriber alert, one Cheer alert, and so on. If you click an alert type you already have, the editor jumps you to it.

The catalog

Event types

Each alert is bound to one event. Style and time them independently.

The full list of tokens for each alert is in the token reference.

Designing an alert

Open the alert designer from any alert widget. An alert is made of blocks you arrange and style: text, an image, a video, and a sound. On top of the blocks you control:

• Background: none, a solid color, a gradient, or an image.
• Entry and exit animation, their durations, and how long the alert holds.
• Per-block animation: give the text its own entrance, add a continuous pulse, and so on.
• Message templates that mix your words with tokens.
• Text to speech, covered in Text to speech.

{name} tipped {amount}: "{message}"

Starter templates

Every alert type ships with a Standard template so it looks good before you touch a thing, plus a Blank option if you would rather build from scratch. Picking a template resets the alert to that starting point.

One event, many looks

A 5-gift sub should not look like a single Tier 1. Set up variations so bigger events trigger a bigger, louder version of the alert.

How it works

An alert has a base design and any number of variations. Each variation has criteria that decide when it can fire, plus the changes it makes on top of the base (different colors, text, sound, animation, even different blocks).

When an event arrives, OverlayThing looks at every variation whose criteria match. The most specific match wins. If two are equally specific, a weighted chance picks between them. If nothing matches, the base design plays.

Criteria

Each variation has one or more criteria, combined with match all (every criterion must be true) or match any (at least one). A criterion is a field, an operator, and a value.

What you can match on

Examples

• Tier 3 subs get a gold version with a different sound.
• Cheers of 1,000 bits or more roll out a bigger animation.
• A merch order that includes anything from your "Limited" collection plays a special alert.

Turning it on

Text to speech is configured per alert in the designer. Pick a voice, set the volume, and choose how it behaves alongside any sound or video in the alert:

You can also set a short delay before the voice starts, and override the voice or speed on an individual text block.

Voices

Available voices come from the speech provider configured for the platform (for example ElevenLabs or Amazon Polly). You choose from the voice list in the designer.

Pronunciation

Voices sometimes mangle names, in-jokes or game terms. In Settings, under Pronunciation overrides, add a word and how it should sound, and speech will use your version everywhere it reads that word.

Quotas

Each account has a monthly character allowance for speech. Generated audio is cached, so re-firing the same message does not spend your allowance twice.

Goal types

Pick what the goal tracks:

• Followers, Subscribers, Bits, Tips, Raids, or Channel Point redemptions.

Set it up

Choose the metric, a target, and a period that decides what counts: this stream, today, this week, this month, all time, or a custom date range. For subscriber goals you can also choose whether gifted subs count once per recipient or once per gift event.

Style it

The bar is fully stylable: solid, gradient or striped fill, rounded or pill or square ends, optional segments, and a label you write yourself using tokens like {current}, {target}, {progress_pct} and {remaining_to_target}.

Countdown

Set it to count down a fixed duration (good for "back in 10 minutes") or to a target time (good for a scheduled start). Choose what happens when it reaches zero: hide, show zeroes, or show a message like "We are live!".

Subathon

A subathon timer starts at a value you set and adds time for events. You decide the rate for each:

Add caps so a single event or the whole clock cannot run away, pause it when you go offline, and optionally let mods pause it with a chat command.

Formatting

Both timers support several display formats (hours:minutes:seconds, minutes:seconds, and longer day-based formats) and tokens like {remaining} and {elapsed} so you can write your own layout.

What it shows

Live messages with usernames in their Twitch colors, badges, and emotes. New messages animate in, and you can fade old ones out after a set time so the box stays clean.

Filtering

• Moderation: apply your channel's moderation so blocked messages never appear.
• Hide bots: exclude known bot accounts (common ones are excluded by default, and you can edit the list).
• Include the broadcaster: choose whether your own messages show.

Styling

Control the maximum number of messages, the direction they stack, animation in and out, row spacing and background, badge visibility and size, username color (their chat color, a custom color, or random), font, and emote size. Emotes can come from Twitch as well as FFZ, BTTV and 7TV.

How a label works

A data label is a piece of text bound to a data source, plus a template you write with tokens. Set the wording to whatever you like, "Last sub: {latest_sub_name}" or just "{latest_follower}", and the token fills in live.

What you can show

The full list is in the token reference. You can also make a label scroll, which is handy for a marquee of recent supporters.

How it works

A counter widget is tied to a single named counter from the chatbot Counters module. Pick which counter it tracks, and the widget shows that counter's current value. When the number changes (a mod runs !death, you press a Stream Deck button, or you edit it on the dashboard) the overlay updates straight away, with no refresh.

Set it up

Add the Counter widget from the widget picker, then choose the counter to track and the wording. The label uses a simple format with two tokens:

Deaths: {value}
{name} - {value}
💀 {value}

Style it

Like any widget, you control the font, size, color, alignment and position on the canvas, so the counter fits the rest of your overlay.

Text

A text block you edit right on the canvas. Double-click to type, then style the font, size, color, alignment, shadow and outline. Text blocks can include tokens, so a plain-looking label can still show your latest follower.

Image

Drop in a logo, a frame, or a background. Choose how it fits its box (cover, contain or fill) and round the corners or fade it as needed.

Video

Use a looping video or animation as a backdrop or accent. Control how it fits, whether it loops, its volume, and a start delay or duration.

Your link

Every account gets a tip page at a clean URL based on your Twitch name:

https://tip.overlaything.com/ferret_king

What viewers see

• Your banner, avatar and accent color up top.
• Preset amounts plus a custom amount field.
• A name and a message box, both of which can appear in your alert.
• A Tip with PayPal button. Funds go to your PayPal account.
• An optional leaderboard of your top tippers.

You can choose between a few page layouts and type styles in Tip settings.

Payments

Add the PayPal email that should receive tips. Set your currency (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD or JPY), a minimum and optional maximum tip, a suggested amount, and how long a tip message can be.

Presets and branding

• Preset amounts: up to five quick-pick buttons, for example 5, 10 and 25. You can feature one preset with a bit of motion and color to draw the eye.
• Banner, avatar and accent color: make the page yours.
• Layout and type style: pick the overall look.
• Leaderboard: show or hide your top tippers.

Tip alerts

A confirmed tip fires your Tip alert on the overlay. Style that alert in the alert designer, and use variations if you want larger tips to look different or only show an alert above a certain amount.

Connecting

Go to Settings, then Connections and connect Fourthwall. You authorize once, and we register to receive your orders and sync your collections and products so you can build alerts around them.

Merch alerts

Once connected, a Merch alert becomes available in the widget picker. When an order is placed, the alert fires with tokens you can drop into the design:

Variations for merch

Merch works with variations too. Match on the order total, the number of items, or which collections and products are in the order, so a "Limited" drop or a big order gets its own celebration.

How it works

Open Magic Builder, type a prompt, and a new custom widget is generated, themed and editable. You get a preview before it lands on your canvas, and you can refine it in plain language ("make the font bigger", "use orange") without starting over.

› a cyberpunk follower goal with a neon progress bar
› a minimal latest-sub label for the top-left
› a raid alert that slides in from the right

Tips for good prompts

• Name the kind of widget: goal, alert, label, counter.
• Describe the vibe: cyberpunk, soft pastel, retro arcade.
• Mention placement, colors and motion if you care about them.

It is a starting point

Generated widgets are normal custom widgets. The builder pulls out the obvious things to tweak (colors, fonts, sizes) as editable fields, and you can open the code at any time to take it further.

The code editor

A custom widget has tabs for HTML, CSS, JS, Fields and a Console. Write your markup and styles, add behavior in JavaScript, and watch logs and errors live in the console while you work.

Fields

Define a fields schema and the editor builds an inspector form for it automatically, so you (or anyone using your widget) can change colors, text and numbers without editing code. Field values are available in your HTML and CSS as {{tokens}} and in your JavaScript through the event payload.

StreamElements compatible

If you are coming from StreamElements, you can paste an existing custom widget and it will largely work as-is. The event API and field system mirror theirs, with a few documented differences.

What you can rely on

• animate.css is always available for entrance and exit animations.
• jQuery is loaded automatically if your code uses it.
• You can pull libraries and assets from common CDNs, and add your own to the allow-list per widget.
• Persistent state survives reloads through a small per-widget storage API.

Ready for the API? See the Widget SDK.

Receiving events

Events are delivered as standard DOM events on window. The two you will use most are onWidgetLoad (fires once with your starting data) and onEventReceived (fires for every live event).

window.addEventListener('onEventReceived', function (obj) {
  if (obj.detail.listener === 'cheer-latest') {
    var e = obj.detail.event;
    if (e.amount >= 1000) confettiBurst(e.name);
  }
});

Event listeners

The message, delete-message and delete-messages listeners carry live chat. The bot:counter listener fires whenever a chatbot counter changes, so a custom widget can react to a death count going up in real time.

onWidgetLoad

Fires once when your widget mounts. The detail carries your channel info, your field values, recent events, and a session-totals dictionary.

window.addEventListener('onWidgetLoad', function (obj) {
  var d = obj.detail;
  var name = d.channel.username;
  var fields = d.fieldData;
  var recent = d.recents;        // last events, oldest first
  var totals = d.session.data;   // session / week / month counts
});

The OL_API object

The stat cards

Across the top: followers, subscribers, tips, raids, bits and channel-point redemptions, each compared against the previous period. Use the period selector to switch between day, week, month and all time.

Chart and activity

The chart breaks any of those metrics down over time, with best day, average and total. Below it, the activity feed is a searchable, filterable log of every event: subs, follows, tips, raids, cheers, redemptions and merch. Gifted subs are grouped into a single tidy row.

Quick controls

• Active overlays: which of your overlays have been live on your stream recently.
• Connections: at-a-glance status for Twitch, PayPal, Fourthwall and StreamElements.

Controlling alerts live

The Alert controls card lets you steer alerts mid-stream without leaving your game:

• Pause / resume: hold all alerts (they queue up and play once you resume), handy during an intense moment or a break.
• Mute text to speech: silence TTS while still showing alerts on screen.
• Skip: drop the alert currently playing and move to the next one.

Each of these also has a Stream Deck URL you can copy onto a button, so a single press pauses, mutes or skips without alt-tabbing.

Your API token

Those Stream Deck URLs are authorized by your channel API token, the same token that powers the chat log API. You can copy it from the Alert controls card, and reset it if it ever leaks.

The tabs

Fixing the numbers

Real events occasionally need a human touch: a tip came in off-platform, or a label shows the wrong name. On the Latest tab you can edit those values directly, and every widget that reads them updates to match. Session aggregates (like top tipper this stream) can be corrected too.

Sessions and periods

A stream session starts when you go live and ends when you go offline. In Settings you can set a grace period (how long a brief disconnect still counts as the same session) and choose whether week and month mean rolling windows (last 7 or 30 days) or calendar periods.

Searching

Search by user, by message text, or by date, and filter the feed by type:

• Chat: regular messages.
• Commands: messages that start with an exclamation mark.
• Events: subs, cheers, raids, follows, redemptions and tips.
• Moderation: timeouts, bans, warnings and clears.

Results render with emotes, badges and the context of each event, and clearly mark anything that was deleted or blocked.

Access and exclusions

Reading the chat log over the API uses your channel API token, the same one that authorizes the Stream Deck alert controls. You can reset it at any time (which also rotates those control URLs), and you can keep a list of bot accounts to exclude so automated chatter does not clutter your history.

What happens to a message

When text comes in, it is checked layer by layer and ends in one of three outcomes:

What you control

Banned words

In Settings, under Moderation, keep your own list of banned words and phrases (type them comma or line separated). Matching is case-insensitive, and your words are redacted rather than blocking the whole message. They apply across your chat box, alert text, text to speech, and tip page messages. Banned words imported from StreamElements land in this same list.

Chat box filtering

Your chat box widget has its own switches: turn moderation on or off for that widget, include or hide your own messages, and exclude bot accounts. These are per widget, so two chat boxes can behave differently.

What runs automatically

On top of your banned words, OverlayThing applies platform-wide protection you do not have to configure:

• A global blocklist of known-bad content.
• Link filtering, so raw URLs do not get read aloud or splashed on screen.
• Spam guards for things like all-caps walls and emoji floods.
• AI moderation that catches hateful, harassing or explicit content even when no specific word is on a list.

You cannot tune these yourself, but you always see when they fire.

Reviewing what was caught

Moderated events are not silent. On your dashboard activity feed, anything redacted or blocked carries a badge you can expand to see what triggered it, the original text, and exactly what your viewers saw. Your chat log also keeps a moderation record you can search.

For custom widgets

If you build a custom widget that shows viewer text, run it through the same pipeline with the SDK sanitize call before displaying it, so your custom code respects the same rules as everything else.

Account

Your profile comes from Twitch: your name, avatar and email sync automatically. You can set your time zone here, which keeps your stats lined up with your own day.

Connections

Notifications

Choose what you want to hear about by email (tips received, overlay or connection problems, a weekly digest, product updates), and optionally point a Discord webhook at your notifications or moderation events.

Security and data

• Active sessions: see where you are signed in and sign out other devices.
• Export your data: download everything in one click. See Export your data.
• Delete your account: a confirmation starts a grace period during which you can still change your mind before anything is permanently removed.

Three ways to take it

Download my data

The full takeout. One click builds a single ZIP containing your channel, every overlay with its widgets and variations, your tip settings, the last 90 days of events, and every asset binary (your uploaded images, video and sound). Use this when you want a complete, verifiable copy of everything we hold for your channel.

Export everything (JSON)

A lighter, one-click option. It bundles your overlays, alerts, labels, session data and tip records into a single JSON file, with no asset binaries (grab those with Download my data). It downloads named like this:

overlaything-export-yourname-2026-06-05.json

Because it is plain JSON, you can open it in any text editor or process it with your own scripts.

Encrypted full archive

For a backup you control end to end. Set a passphrase and choose what to include (configs, plus optionally your assets, events and chat-log history). We build an encrypted bundle and email you a one-hour download link. You decrypt it locally with the age tool.

What comes over

What does not come over

The import is about your overlays and your history. Whole StreamElements products that have no OverlayThing counterpart are not touched and are not imported:

• "Elements", StreamElements' newer overlay system that replaced classic overlays. We import classic overlays; anything built in the Elements editor lives on a separate StreamElements API and is not picked up.
• Your StreamElements chat bot, commands and timers.
• Your loyalty points and store.
• Merch and sponsorship deals.
• Giveaways and contests.

Those keep running in StreamElements exactly as they did.

Running an import

Subscriber alert

Cheer, tip, raid, follow

Channel points & shoutout

Merch alert

Goals

Countdown & subathon

Data labels

Editing

Layout

These docs

My overlay is blank on stream

• Check the URL in your browser source matches your current overlay URL. If you regenerated it, re-paste the new one.
• Set the source size to your overlay resolution and make sure it is not sized to zero.
• Refresh the browser source cache in your streaming software.

Alerts are not firing

• Use Test Alert. If the test shows but real events do not, re-authorize Twitch from Settings, then Connections.
• Check that a variation is not filtering the event out, and that the alert is on the overlay you are actually using.
• For tips, confirm PayPal is connected and the tip clears any minimum you set.
• For merch, confirm Fourthwall is connected.

No alert sound

• Add the overlay browser source to your streaming software audio mixer. It may be muted by default.
• Check the alert sound is on and its volume is up in the designer, and the same for text to speech.

Edits are not showing on stream

• Give it a second. Edits autosave and push to connected sources on their own.
• If a source has shut down when not visible on, switch scenes back to it to reload.
• As a last resort, refresh the browser source cache in your streaming software.