In a nutshell

  • Twitch logs allow you to see a viewer’s complete chat history on your channel
  • They help you moderate viewers who have been inappropriate multiple times
  • There are a few ways you can check your Twitch logs

Twitch is an extremely popular livestreaming platform that has a massive streamer community and a larger audience. It’s likely that most successful Twitch streamers would say the best part about Twitch is how many people use the platform compared to other livestreaming platforms. However, Twitch’s huge audience size doesn’t come without its costs. One of the curses — and blessings — of Twitch’s size that many streamers have fast-flowing chats. People want to engage with their favorite streamers and their fellow viewers. This, in turn, leaves the door open for toxic viewers or trolls to engage as well. While it’s nearly impossible to moderate everyone in real time, Twitch logs make it easy to look back on what was said and moderate.

In this article, we will go over what Twitch logs are exactly, why they are useful and all the ways you can check them while streaming on Twitch.

What are Twitch logs?

Simply put, Twitch logs are an archive of all the comments that have been sent in your channel’s chatbox either during a livestream or when you’re offline. The comments are sorted based on who typed them. So, every viewer has their own unique Twitch log for every channel on Twitch. The logs can go back years, so even if a chatter typed something all the way back in 2019, you could check that chatter’s log to see what they said. If a viewer is a “lurker,” or someone who never types in the chat box and just enjoys the stream, they too have a chat log. However, the log will be empty since they haven’t said anything.

What do streamers use Twitch logs for?

Twitch chat log
Image courtesy: STREAMSENTIALS

There are a few ways Twitch streamers use logs for. Here are the main ones:

Moderation

It’s hard, if not impossible, to keep track of every single message sent in your chat while streaming. It’s even harder when you have hundreds typing in your chat. Streams rely on Twitch logs to allow them or their moderators to look back on a viewer’s logs and determine if they need a time out or need a ban.

Unban forms

Some streamers like to make content out of their unban forms. Unban forms are essentially a request that a banned chatter sends to the streamer asking to be unbanned — at least some of them. When streamers look through their unban forms, they pull up the banned chatter’s logs to see why they were banned in the first place and to see if they’ve mostly been a wholesome, positive chatter through their history on the channel. The logs help the streamer determine if they’re okay to unban and bring back into their community.

Keeping a conversation going

Good streamers like to strike up conversations with chat members. However, they shouldn’t stop their entire stream just to look out to see if that chat member responds to what they’re saying. So, streamers like to check that person’s logs, making it easier to respond while also keeping the content going. 

Checking Twitch logs

Now, let’s go over how to check your logs. It can be done in a number of ways: using the Search command, using the mod view and through 3rd party programs. Note, for obvious reasons, not every option will be available depending on what type of user you are. For instance, if you’re a viewer, you won’t be able to use the Search command, but the streamer can.

Let’s take a look at these ways in detail.

Checking Twitch chat logs with the Search command

The Search command lets you see a particular viewer’s log. This way is very useful for streamers to use during a livestream since it’s quite quick to do. Here’s how:

  1. Go to your channel’s chat room
  2. Type in “/user” followed by the viewer’s name. So, for example, to check on TiredTire00’s chat log, you would type “/user TiredTire00”
  3. Enter it into the chat room

Note: if you’re the streamer of the channel, you can also check logs by clicking on their username if you’re live. It yields the same result but may be quicker.

How to check Twitch logs as a moderator

Moderators can also check a chatter’s logs by clicking on a user’s name and using the Search function when in Mod View:

  • In the lower right of mod view, click on the sword icon
  • Select the user’s name you watch to review. Moderators can also use the search function
  • Click the viewer’s message tab

What about third-party programs?

There are third-party programs viewers can use to check other viewers’ chat logs. There are a view available online and store chat logs as local storage. However, these are not as user-friendly/easy to use and require a steep learning curve in most cases. Twitch also doesn’t endorse the use of third-party programs.

Time to check chat

Twitch logs are helpful for streamers because they allow them to look back, either a few minutes or years, to see what a chatter said. It’s hard to mentally record everything said while streaming, so logs help make streamers’ jobs a little more manageable.