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Livestreamer Twitch GUI is a Twitch.tv browser. The application uses Livestreamer under the hood, is powered by Node.js and Chromium, and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac.

Livestreamer Twitch GUI

According to its description, the main reason behind creating this application is to allow using your favorite video player, like VLC, Totem, mpv, and others to watch Twitch.tv streams (the app even allows watching multiple streams at once) instead of Flash. 

That's because while Twitch.tv now uses HTML5 for the video controls, it still uses Flash for the video itself, which can be pretty resource-heavy.

Livestreamer Twitch GUI

Livestreamer Twitch GUI allows searching and browsing channels and games, and it supports logging in to your Twitch account (using OAuth), with access to subscriptions, followed channels, and games.

Desktop notifications are included as well, so you can be notified when a channel you follow comes online. The notifications are optional and can be enabled or disabled per channel. There's also an option in the Livestreamer Twitch GUI tray / AppIndicator menu that allows pausing the notifications.

Other Livestreamer Twitch GUI features include:
  • multiple chat methods (can open the chat in a web browser, Chatty or a custom app)
  • stream language filters
  • customizable settings for streams (like default quality and buffer), video player parameters, GUI and more
By default, the app uses VLC to play Twitch.tv streams. If VLC is not installed, you'll need to set a video player in the application settings: under Player > Videoplayer (enter "mpv", "totem", "smplayer" and so on, without the quotes):

Livestreamer Twitch GUI


Download Livestreamer Twitch GUI


Download Livestreamer Twitch GUI (binaries available for Linux, Windows and Mac, along with source)

Note that for Livestreamer Twitch GUI to work, you'll need to install Livestreamer.


Install Livestreamer Twitch GUI in Debian, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint


The instructions below should work on any Linux distribution, except the command to install the dependencies (and the package names), which is for Debian-based Linux distributions only.

1. Install the required dependencies:
sudo apt install livestreamer x11-utils xdg-utils

Note that Livestreamer Twitch GUI requires Livestreamer version 1.12. This is available in the official Ubuntu 15.10 and newer / Linux Mint 18 repositories. For Ubuntu 14.04 or Linux Mint 17.x, install it via GetDeb - here's a direct link to the deb files.

2. Download and install Livestreamer Twitch GUI

Download the latest Livestreamer Twitch GUI binary from GitHub, place it in your home folder and extract it. Using the command below, the app folder will be moved from your home directory to /opt, but you can use any location you want:
cd && sudo mv livestreamer-twitch-gui /opt/

And finally, to create a menu entry for Livestreamer Twitch GUI, use the following command:
/opt/livestreamer-twitch-gui/add-menuitem.sh

If after running the command above you can't find Livestreamer Twitch GUI in the menu / Unity Dash or the icon is missing, restart the session (logout / login).

Arch Linux users can install Livestreamer Twitch GUI via AUR: stable | git.

For how to install the application in Windows, see THIS page.

More Twitch.tv tools:


via ghacks