Everyone loves Twitch emotes, they're a quick way to express something to our friends, but most Twitch emotes are only enabled once you subscribe to a channel, and they're also limited for each creator on the platform, so if you want a lot of different emotes, you'll probably need to subscribe to a few channels.
BetterTTV is a third-party thing, which will expand everything about emotes on Twitch, the streamers can upload emotes, either in a private or shared way, and the viewers can enjoy the emotes that are added to the channels, without paying for anything.
Although streamers can have their own emotes, and BetterTTV will not allow them to be stolen if the emote was made private for that streamer channel, there is a big pool of emotes that are public and added on many different channels, these popular emotes are used everywhere.
Everybody can upload emotes, making it something not exclusively for the content creators, and it's not a hard process, in this article, we will show how to install BetterTTV and how emotes are added.
How to install the BetterTTV extension?
BetterTTV isn't a regular desktop app, it is a browser extension like UBlock for example, it will show the emotes once you're on the Twitch website with the extension installed.
To download BetterTTV, go to this webpage, it will automatically detect your browser so you can download the right file, alternatively, go to the website where you're able to browse extensions for your current browser and search for it, but pay attention to install the correct extension!
After installing, automatically it will start working, to confirm this go to Twitch and open a live channel, the chat settings with a gear icon should be at the bottom right, next to where you send messages, here you can configure BetterTTV the way you want. If you don't see the BetterTTV emotes, try to restart your browser.
How to use BetterTTV on desktop
It looks great on the website, but sometimes all the features of BetterTTV would look better if you had an organized chat application with all of that built-in, and that's Chatterino!
You can download Chatterino at its website, it is practically on every platform and quick to set up, the performance of Chatterino is superior to using the webchat, as it is a native application. Chatterino goes far than BetterTTV, by having also FrankerFaceZ on the application, which is similar to BetterTTV, so it includes both things and adds some quality of life features.
After installing Chatterino, you have to authenticate with your Twitch account, something that is done on the Twitch website, and copy-pasting some code back on Chatterino. You can then add channel tabs by clicking on the plus icon on the app, typing the channel name hitting ok.
Done! You can now enjoy all of BetterTTV and FrankerFaceZ on Chatterino!
Chatterino error: login expired try logging in again
If you didn't log in to Chatterino, or the message "login expired try logging in again" appears, you have to authenticate again.
To log in on Chatterino through Twitch, first, click on the gear icon on the top right of the Chatterino app.
The settings screen will appear, where you can select the Accounts tab on the left.
Remove your account and add it again, you will be prompted with two buttons, first click on the button that says "Log in (Opens in browser)", the Twitch site will open and you can proceed to log in with your Twitch account.
After logging in, you will be given your login info, which you can put back on the Chatterino app by pressing the second button that says "Paste login info"
Voilá, you've authenticated on Chatterino again! (or for the first time)
How to add BetterTTV emotes to my channel
If you have a Twitch channel, you can add BetterTTV emotes, either your own emotes or the shared emotes from their website. You can still add emotes if you don't stream on Twitch, you will probably want to make your emote a shared one so others can add it.
Log in on the BetterTTV website using your Twitch account and then open the dashboard page on emotes: https://betterttv.com/dashboard/emotes
You can then add emotes by either uploading or clicking on "Go find emotes" to browse through the shared emotes, if you make an upload and choose to make the emote shareable, other users will be able to add it to their channels, so their viewers can use it.
The emote should automatically be added and ready to use, but you may have to reload Chatterino by pressing F5 if you're using the app.
- Can I add any emote I want? Stolen emotes from other channels are often removed when reported
- Do I have to pay for BetterTTV? BetterTTV is free but you can subscribe for BetterTTV Pro which will give you more emotes and priority emote approval
- Are emotes approved? Sometimes emotes are auto-approved, but they are susceptible to approval and may be removed sometimes
- Why I can't see my emote on other channels? The emotes are per channel, if you add it yourself, everyone can only use it on your channel before they add it in their channels, they aren't something global, although there are some global emotes available
What is FrankerFaceZ?
It is similar to BetterTTV, both are always used together and complement each other, in Chatterino you always see FrankerFaceZ emotes as well, you can take a look at FrankerFaceZ on their website, some very popular emotes are FrankerFaceZ ones.
Authenticating in FrankerFaceZ works the same way as in the BetterTTV website, it is done using Twitch and there is a button on the top right of their website for it.
FrankerFaceZ is more clear on the submission guidelines and you can check it at https://www.frankerfacez.com/emoticons/submit, this way you can know why your emotes aren't approved sometimes, although BetterTTV gives some explanation when they block your emote from the website.
At the time of this writing, FrankerFaceZ has only static emotes, so you can't upload animated ones like BetterTTV, but don't let that bring you down, the slots that they provide are very good for your channel if you're a streamer, and as said, some of their emotes are used on several different channels, so users kind of already expect you to add them(just take a look on some channels and see the ones that repeat).
If you're a viewer, adding FrankerFaceZ will further remove the phrases that don't turn to emote somehow and make you stop lacking critical information.
What emotes to add?
If you're out of ideas or need some emotes that users are used to on your channel, you can take a look at the most popular ones.
The BTTV most popular emotes can be found on their website, by clicking on Emotes and heading to the Top Emotes or the Trending Emotes page, some users always expect to see, like Sadge or PepeLaugh, you will suddenly realize that you don't have as many emote slots as you think!
For FrankerFaceZ you can head to Emotes and Public Library, it will show a list filtered by usage count, by looking at the numbers you will have a big list of emotes to add!
Another way of finding emotes is to access the StreamElements stats website, it gives detailed information about emotes and also allows you to browse statistics for specific streamers, something that you can use to add emotes often used by content creators who do something similar to what you do.
