Connect your YouTube channel
Press Connect YouTube in the app, confirm on the website, pick your channel on Google, and the app picks it up. What happens, what is stored, and how to undo it.
ForgeCast reads your live chat, Super Chats, memberships, viewer count and likes while you stream. To do that it needs to know which channel is yours. Connecting takes one button, a confirmation on this website, and Google's own account chooser. There is nothing to copy and paste.
Your ForgeCast account and your YouTube channel are two things
You sign in to ForgeCast with Google or Discord. That proves who you are to ForgeCast. Connecting YouTube is a separate step that tells ForgeCast which channel to follow (and turns on channel controls where the server offers them). They can be the same Google account or different ones.
Connect
Press Connect YouTube
In the app, open Integrations. In the YouTube card, press Connect YouTube. (You need to be signed in to the app. If you aren't, the button starts the sign-in first.)
Confirm on the ForgeCast website
Your browser opens a ForgeCast page that says which account you are linking a channel to. Check that it is yours, and press Continue to YouTube. Only continue if you just pressed the button in the app yourself.
Choose your account on Google
Google's page asks you to pick the account that owns your channel and shows what ForgeCast asks for: to manage your YouTube account (so the app can post in chat, run polls and rename your stream when you press those buttons; see Channel controls). On a ForgeCast server without channel controls it asks only to view it, read-only. Choose the account, then Allow.
Done
The website says YouTube connected with your channel's name and picture. Go back to the app: it has already updated and shows Connected: your channel, "linked through your ForgeCast account". (If the page offers Open ForgeCast, that brings the app to the front.)
The app notices by itself, within a couple of seconds. You can close the browser tab. If the app's Finish in your browser panel lost its tab, press Open the page again; Cancel stops waiting.
Each connection link works once, for ten minutes
The ForgeCast page and Google must be opened in the same browser. If a page says the link isn't valid, it was already used, took too long, or was opened somewhere else. Press Connect YouTube in the app again.
Connect from the website instead
On your account page, the YouTube channel card has Connect YouTube too (and Change channel and Disconnect once one is linked). It runs the same steps, and the app picks the channel up the next time it checks: when you open it, when you bring its window to the front, or at once if you press Open ForgeCast on the confirmation page.
More than one channel
With Ultimate your account keeps up to 3 channels linked. Connecting another one (Integrations → YouTube → Add another channel in the app, or Add another channel on your account page) keeps the channel you had, and the new one becomes the one in use. Your other channels are listed under it: Switch makes one the channel in use (the app follows at once, and channel controls work for it with its own permission), Remove unlinks it and revokes its permission at Google.
Other plans have one channel: connecting another replaces it. If you leave Ultimate, your other channels stay linked until you remove them, but switching needs Ultimate again.
Type your @handle instead
You don't have to connect through your account. In Integrations → YouTube, choose Or type your @handle instead, enter @yourhandle (or the link to your channel), and press Connect. ForgeCast then looks at your public channel page the way a viewer would. Nothing is linked to your account, and nothing from Google is involved.
This is also what the app shows when the ForgeCast server isn't set up for one-click connecting (for example on a copy somebody runs themselves).
Channel controls
When the channel is linked through your account, the app can also act as your channel, through YouTube's official API:
- Post in your live chat (up to 200 characters), by hand or from a chat action's Post chat reply step.
- Run a poll in your live chat (a question and 2 to 4 answers), and end it to see the votes.
- See your live, upcoming and recent streams and uploads, and rename a live or upcoming stream.
Each of these uses some of YouTube's daily allowance ("quota"), which every ForgeCast user shares. So each account gets its own share a day: Free 200 units, Pro 1,000, Ultimate 2,500. A chat message or a new poll uses about 20 units, ending a poll 20, refreshing your streams 3, renaming a stream 2. The app shows what is left; the allowance starts again at midnight Pacific time. Reading chat, viewers and likes uses none (see below).
Channels linked before controls existed show Turn on controls in Integrations → YouTube: it runs the same connection again and asks Google for the extra permission.
Until Google has verified ForgeCast
Managing a YouTube account is a permission Google reviews before an app can offer it to everyone. Until that review is done, only accounts added as test users (up to 100) can turn controls on, Google shows its "Google hasn't verified this app" screen, and the permission lapses after 7 days (press Turn on controls again). Reading your stream works either way.
What ForgeCast stores, and what it doesn't
- With channel controls: Google's permission (a refresh token) is kept on ForgeCast's server, encrypted (AES-256-GCM), and used only when you press a control in the app. It is never sent to the app and never logged. Disconnecting revokes it at Google and deletes it. ForgeCast also counts how much of the daily allowance each account used.
- Without channel controls: read-only access, used once to ask "which channel is this?", then discarded: never stored, never logged, revoked straight away.
- Saved on your ForgeCast account: your channel's ID, name, @handle, picture address and subscriber count. That is all public information.
- Saved on your PC: the channel, so the app can open it next time.
- Never: your Google password (you type it on Google's page only), your email from Google, your videos or your private messages. Nothing on your channel changes unless you press a control in the app (or a chat action you made posts a reply).
What ForgeCast reads
After connecting, the app follows your channel's live stream the way a browser tab does: it reads the channel's public pages and the same small feeds the YouTube watch page uses. That means:
| It reads | How quickly |
|---|---|
| Live chat, including Super Chats, Super Stickers, new members, milestones and gifted memberships | Every couple of seconds |
| Viewers and likes | About every five seconds |
| Which of your streams is live | About once a minute |
- It uses no YouTube API quota, so there is nothing to run out of, however long you stream.
- Reading never posts anything. Posting and polls are channel controls, which use the official API.
- There are no new-subscriber alerts: YouTube doesn't publish them anywhere ForgeCast can see.
- Chat only exists while you are live (and a short history when a stream is opened), so alerts and chat actions only run during a broadcast.
- These are YouTube's own website feeds, not a documented API. YouTube can change them without notice. If that happens, the Dashboard says what failed instead of showing stale numbers.
Disconnect
You can remove the connection any time:
- In the app: Integrations → YouTube → Disconnect. This also unlinks the channel from your ForgeCast account.
- On the website: your account page → YouTube channel → Disconnect. The app lets go of the channel the next time it checks.
- At Google: Google account → Security → Third-party access. With channel controls on, ForgeCast is listed there until you disconnect; removing it there turns controls off (the app then offers Turn on controls).
Deleting your ForgeCast account removes the linked channels with it, and revokes their permissions at Google.