YouTube boost: chat in 1.5 seconds

Get your free API key

1. Open Google Cloud

   Go to console.cloud.google.com and sign in. The first time, accept the terms.

2. Create a project

   Click the project picker at the top (it may say Select a project), then New project. Name it, for example Stream chat, and click Create. Make sure the new project is selected at the top.

3. Switch on the YouTube API

   Open the menu ☰ → APIs & Services → Library. Search for YouTube Data API v3, open it and click Enable.

4. Create the key

   In APIs & Services open Credentials, click + Create credentials and choose API key. Copy the key (it starts with AIza).

5. Limit the key to YouTube

   Click the key's name (or Edit API key). Under API restrictions choose Restrict key, tick YouTube Data API v3 and click Save.

   Leave Application restrictions on None. OBS sends no website address, so a website restriction blocks the boost.

Add the key to the widget

1. Open your overlay in StreamElements and click Comic Chat (or Comic Throw).
2. In the settings open YouTube boost and paste the key into Your YouTube API key.
3. YouTube channel or live link: leave it empty if your StreamElements account is your YouTube channel. Otherwise enter your channel (@yourname or the channel link) or the link of the live stream.
4. Click Save. A small note at the bottom left of the editor shows what the boost is doing: ready, waiting for your live stream or on once you are live. It is never shown on stream.

Nothing else changes: follows, members, Super Chats and all other alerts keep coming through StreamElements. If the boost ever stops (quota used up, wrong key, connection lost), the chat simply comes through StreamElements again, as before.

How far one key goes

• Each key gets 10,000 units per day from Google, free. A live stream with active chat uses about 1,730 per hour: that is at least 5.5 streaming hours per day, more when your chat has quiet phases. The count starts over at midnight Pacific time (9 am in Berlin).
• The boost saves your quota by itself: it only connects once your stream is really live (not while it is scheduled), and only looks every 90 seconds until then (2 units). After 5 quiet minutes without chat it rests; the next message comes through StreamElements and wakes it. In the StreamElements editor it connects for 3 minutes only, so editor and OBS do not use the key twice.
• Boost in Comic Chat and Comic Throw at the same time? Each widget reads the chat, so one key lasts about half as long. For long streams give the second widget a key from a second project (step 2 again).
• Your key stays in your StreamElements account and goes only to YouTube, never to Craftium. Anyone with your overlay link could read it, so keep that link private. A key can never cost money; you can delete it in Google Cloud anytime.

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