Stream Deck For Mac

Playing a game and managing your stream at the same time can lead to some mix-ups, as there are only so many hotkeys you can remember. A basic keyboard is going to slow you down and limit production quality, not to mention that you may end up pressing the wrong hotkey by accident.

The Elgato Stream Deck controller was designed as an accessible solution to this issue - it is a miniature keyboard, with 6 or 15 LCD keys that can be configured to trigger any stream-related action with a single press. What’s more, you can design custom icons that make it easy to see exactly what each key does at a glance.

There are a lot of things you need to do during a stream: switch scenes, manage alerts, change the stream title, switch chat modes, mix audio, tweet to your followers and more. If you assign these actions to regular key combinations, things can get confusing very quickly.

With a Stream Deck controller, you can assign any of them to a single key, and the icon visible on the key’s display will make it impossible to mix it up with another. Aside from Twitch, it also supports OBS Studio, Streamlabs and Elgato Game Capture.

Whether you have the regular controller or the newer 6-key variant, you can manage both of them with this app. All you need to do is find an action in the right-hand panel and drag it to one of the keys on the board. The default icons are descriptive enough, but you can replace them with others or even create your own.

There are numerous actions that can be bound to the keys, and they include pretty much anything you need to do while streaming. You can assign any system hotkey, as well as have them open an application, file, folder or website.

If you find that you need two or more sets of hotkeys when streaming certain types of content, you can create multiple profiles and switch between them instantly. Several devices can be configured separately, and you can also manage the brightness of the LCD keys with this app.

While small streamers can probably do without a Stream Deck controller, it can make your life a lot easier if you have a decent number of viewers. One thing is certain, though - the configuration app is well-designed, allowing you to set up your hotkeys and get things up and running in minutes.