Learn about live streams

Live streams let you watch media that’s broadcasted in real-time on YouTube. Premieres let you watch a new video with creators and their community in real-time. Learn how to join a live stream.

About live streams

Once you’re in the live stream, you can:

• Send messages in the chat
• Send reactions
• Purchase Super Chats or Super Stickers
• Buy a channel membership
• Swipe up to see more live streams

Scheduled live streams, Premieres, and horizontal live streams won’t appear in Shorts.

Can I watch live stream replays?

Once a live stream is over, a channel may post highlights or a replay of the stream on their channel. Highlights and replays show up as videos on their channel.

What is Live Chat?

While watching a live stream or a Premiere, you can engage with others by sending messages in Live Chat.

• The Live Chat feature is only available on YouTube watch pages, not on embedded players.
• Remember to follow YouTube’s Community Guidelines and guidelines for staying safe in live streams.
• During a live stream or Premiere, you can send up to 11 messages to the chat every 30 seconds. Each message is limited to 200 characters.
• Special characters, URLs, or HTML tags are not allowed in the Live Chat.
• Some Live Chats give you the option to support creators by sending them a Super Chat or Super Stickers. Once purchased, Super Chat and Super Stickers let you post brightly colored, pinned chat messages and stickers during live streams and Premieres.

What are AI-generated summaries?

New viewers joining a live stream may see an AI-generated summary of the chat. Not all live streams will have a generated chat summary. Chat summaries are created using public conversations within the current Live Chat, not a summary of the live stream content.