How To Hide Chat on Twitch (2024 Updated)

Hiding the Chaos: How to Remove Twitch Chat from Your View

Twitch chat can be entertaining, but also chaotic, distracting, and even toxic at times. If you find yourself wanting to focus on the stream without the endless viewer commentary, there are a few methods you can use to remove chat from your sight.

Why Hide Twitch Chat?

Here are some of the top reasons you may want to ditch the chat window:

• The chat moves too fast to read or participate in
• Too many spam/emote floods make chat unusable
• Toxicity or harassment from other viewers
• Spoilers being posted in chat
• Finding chat distracting from enjoying the stream

During huge events like eSports tournaments or streams with 100,000+ viewers, Twitch chat tends to become an endless waterfall of spam that even the most seasoned chat veterans have trouble keeping up with.

Quantifying Chat Volume

In fact, analysis shows chat frequency scales exponentially as stream view count rises. Below is a chart demonstrating this relationship, with message volume measured in chats per minute:

As this data shows, at over 500,000 live viewers, average chat velocity exceeds 90,000 messages per minute! Reading at a generous rate of 5 messages per second would still require 5 hours of nonstop reading to get through 1 minute of chat.

Smaller streams can also frequently get derailed by trolls or backseat gamers posting spoilers and generally ruining the fun. As a viewer, you may simply want to enjoy the stream without that noise.

Fortunately, completely removing chat is quite easy on both desktop and mobile once you know where to look.

Hide Chat on Mobile

The Twitch mobile app makes it simple to show or remove chat with just a tap.

On iOS:

1. Open the stream you want to watch
2. Tap on the video to open video options
3. Rotate your phone to landscape view
4. Tap the "Hide Chat" icon (crossed out chat box icon)

On Android:

1. Open the desired stream
2. Tap the screen for options
3. Select landscape mode if not already displayed that way
4. Choose "Hide chat"

Once chat is hidden, you can rotate your phone any way and it will remain invisible. Tap the same icon again later to restore chat if desired.

Removing Chat on Desktop

Desktop requires a few more clicks to banish chat, but the process remains straightforward:

1. Navigate to the stream page
2. Locate the gear icon next to the chat bar and click it
3. Select "Hide chat"

The chat bar will vanish, leaving only the stream player visible. When ready to see chat again, click the "Show chat" button on the left sidebar.

Limitations of Hiding Chat

While hiding the native Twitch chat is simple enough, some limitations exist:

• If the stream displays chat overlaid on the video, hiding the sidebar chat won‘t remove it
• Only normal viewers can hide chat. Broadcasters/streamers cannot hide chat functions.
• Some third-party chat apps may still show chat even if disabled in Twitch.

Overlay chat and third-party chats are controlled by the streamer, so hiding them isn‘t possible on the viewer end.

Comparing Chat Moderation Across Streaming Giants

When it comes to reining in harassment and spam, Twitch has faced criticism over the years for having more relaxed chat moderation compared to competitors like YouTube.

Below is a breakdown of differences in chat moderation features between the two platforms:

As this shows, Twitch streamers have far fewer built-in automated tools to filter and slow down chat compared to YouTube creators. This creative freedom comes at the cost of chat often trending towards uncontrolled spam/emote floods.

Toxicity in Gaming Still a Problem

Beyond policies, Twitch grapples with some systemic cultural issues stemming from elements of the larger gaming community. Surveys indicate 75% of online gamers have witnessed some form of toxic harassment.

Top abuse trends include:

• Casual use of slurs and offensive language
• Gender discrimination/sexism towards female gamers
• Aggressive insults towards new or struggling players

While not completely unavoidable, viewers tired of wading through the muck can benefit greatly from simply hiding chat for a cleaner experience.

Alternatives to Completely Removing Chat

If you still want the option to glance at chat but don‘t want it cluttering your screen, smaller pop-out chat windows are another handy choice.

On desktop, you can pop-out chat into a separate window and resize or position it anywhere while watching. Mobile allows minimizing chat rather than fully hiding it, shrinking it down to just recent messages.

For mobile chat:

• Swipe left from the right edge of the screen to partially hide chat.
• Swipe right to fully restore the chat column.

This keeps a narrow sliver of recent chat visible but avoids the scrolling waterfall.

Desktop pop-out:

• In chat settings gear menu, choose "Pop-out chat".
• Resize/reposition the separate chat window anywhere.

The pop-out allows you to keep important chat notices in the corner of your eye without it dominating the stream viewing space.

Customizing Chat Appearance

If you‘re technically inclined, browser extensions like FrankerFaceZ on Firefox and Chrome allow granular customization of chat features:

• Permanently hide specific spammy emotes
• Filter chat messages by length or character makeup
• Slow down scrolling speed
• Bold @mentions and personal highlights

Power users can craft advanced filters to weed out the worst spam bots and maximize important chat messages.

Combining these tweaks with a popped-out chat window gives readers more control over the experience. Leave annoying emotes hidden while highlighting follower notices and personal call-outs all in a contained box.

Alternative Chat Integrations

Some streamers integrate third-party chat services like Discord or Twitter Feeds as replacements or supplements for the native Twitch chat:

Discord:

• Channels linked directly to live subscriber feeds
• Typically stronger moderation from server admins
• Easier to highlight @mentions

Twitter:

• Curated feed of chatter tweets
• Uses Twitter‘s native moderation policies
• Streams natively support #hashtags

Neither handles sheer user volume as well as Twitch chat, but both provide viewers and streamers more robust tools to control experience.

Server-based chat services like Discord may become increasingly common as streamers continue expanding beyond just uploading recorded footage to cultivating entire communities. Twitch itself has expanded into hosting subscriber-only Discord servers for popular channels.

Integrating a cultivated chat experience outside of Twitch‘s relative free-for-all allows greater connections with loyal viewers rather than random drive-bys.

Control Your Viewing Experience

Twitch chat can make streams more engaging but also distract from the entertainment at times, whether from size, spam or toxicity. Thankfully, as a viewer you have options to take control over your viewing experience.

Hiding or minimizing chat on desktop and mobile gives you a time-out from the chaos when you just want to sit back and enjoy the show. The ability to toggle chat visibility instantly means you can remove the clutter at a moment‘s notice.

While some exterior chats may still linger if a streamer has added them, hiding the default Twitch chat remains a huge improvement for many. Don‘t be afraid to use that "Hide Chat" button to maximize your viewing pleasure.

Sometimes you just need a little less talk and a little more action!