If you don't want to stream to the public and go live on YouTube, Facebook or Twitch but still want your friends to see what you're doing then Discord is an option.  

Discord isn't just a platform for voice chat and messaging. It also has multiple other uses including just streaming your game so your friends can easily see what you're doing. 

This is perfect if you're playing a game which doesn't have a spectate mode or you want to show what you're doing in a particular game, application or just in Windows in general. 

How to stream on a Discord server

It's first important to know that the best way to stream on Discord is via a server. You can start a voice call with friends on Discord and then stream your screen that way, but doing it via a server will let you share your screen with more friends quickly and easily. 

We've written before about how to start your own Discord server and how to join a Discord server that someone else has created. So we'd recommend reading that if you don't know the basics already. 

Join a voice channel to start streaming

The next step is to join a voice channel. You need to be in a voice channel before you can start streaming. 

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Look for the voice channels on the left-hand side menu then click to join the right one. Once you've joined you'll see that the options change at the bottom left of the app near your name. 

The options now include a button for video (which lets you broadcast your camera) and one for "screen" which allows you to stream your apps, games or desktop. 

We're assuming that your goal is to stream a game rather than your webcam for this. 

The steps are:

  • Click on "screen" on the bottom left of the app
  • Click on the game from the list of applications listed
  • Check the channel you're streaming to
  • Click to adjust stream quality settings including resolution and frame rate
  • Click to "go live"
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Once you've done this you'll then be live on the voice channel. People can then click to watch the stream and generally doing so will drag them into the voice channel with you. 

You can then see at the bottom of the screen that there's a message saying what you're streaming just above your profile image. You can choose to end the stream by clicking the screen with the x in the middle of it next to that. 

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Streaming a screen on Discord

If you have a multi-monitor setup or if you're having problems streaming your game on Discord, then you can choose to stream your "screen" instead. 

To do this follow the same steps that you'd do to stream a game or application but choose the screen option instead. However, it's worth knowing that this will then stream anything on your chosen screen and that could reveal things you don't want to. Which wouldn't be ideal if you're on a public server with some people you don't know.