Twitch chat commands: a 2026 reference for viewers, moderators, and streamers
April 30, 2026
Updated April 30, 2026
Twitch's slash-command list is already past 50, and the platform keeps shoving stuff around. Three-year recap, real fast: /host hit the bin October '22. /shield dropped that November. /shoutout, /pin landed September '22. /warn went live June '24. Below: every working command (verified at help.twitch.tv as of 2026-05). Grouped by who can fire it, with exact syntax, plus the gotchas that catch people sideways. Bookmark once. Skip the second tab.
Who and How Can Use
Quick answer first. Type the slash command in the chat box, hit Enter, done. Twitch reads your role on that channel, then it either runs the action or it just eats the input silently. Five roles total. Each opens a different slice of the list.
- Broadcaster (channel owner): every command, including role assignment (
/mod,/vip) and ad scheduling (/commercial). - Editor: manages clips, stream titles, schedules, markers, and most ad-related actions; cannot ban users or change moderator status.
- Moderator (Mod): full chat-moderation suite,
/ban,/timeout,/clear,/slow,/followers,/subscribers,/uniquechat,/shield,/warn,/announce,/pin,/shoutout,/raid. - VIP: bypasses slow mode, follower-only, and subscriber-only restrictions, but holds no moderation rights.
- Regular viewer: personal commands only:
/me,/color,/w,/block,/unblock,/disconnect, plus participation in polls and predictions.
Trap to know before going further. February 24, 2023 — that is the date Twitch yanked slash commands out of IRC. So your old bot still pushes /ban or /timeout through IRC? Silent fail, no error to chat. Modern bots have to hit the Helix API. TwitchDev said it themselves when the change rolled out: "In an effort to improve Twitch Chat and centralize functionality within the Twitch API, the use of chat commands over IRC has been deprecated." If your moderation bot croaked in early '23 and never recovered — yeah, that is why. Either patch it, or hop to a bot still under maintenance.
Worth flagging: slash commands and bot commands, very much not the same thing. Slash commands begin with / — native, baked straight into Twitch. Bot commands usually open with ! and ride on Nightbot, StreamElements, Streamlabs Cloudbot, or Moobot. The bot side gets covered in our chat basics guide; here we stick to native slash.
Basic Commands for All Users
Every viewer, including the unverified ones, gets these. Personalization stuff (nickname color, action lines). Discovery stuff (who the mods are). Self-protection stuff (block the annoying user). Zero Affiliate, Partner, Turbo, or Prime needed. One exception flagged inline below.
/me <text>: sends an action-style line in your chat color. Useful for emotes, reactions, or roleplay ("/me waves at the new follower")./color <color>: sets your username color. Free accounts pick from 15 named presets (Red, Blue, Green, etc.). Hex codes such as/color #FF5733work only on Twitch Turbo or Prime Gaming subscriptions./w <username> <message>: sends a private whisper. The recipient sees it in their inbox; chat sees nothing. Newer accounts cannot whisper unverified users; phone-verify if it fails./block <username>: hides the user's messages from your view, blocks their whispers, and prevents host or raid notifications from them. The block is account-wide, not per channel./unblock <username>: reverses the block. Both users have to wait a short cooldown before chatting again./mods: prints the moderator list for the current channel./vips: prints the VIP list./disconnect: disconnects you from the chat for the current session. Refreshing the page reconnects you./help <command>: shows quick syntax help for any command you have access to./memessages stay 500 characters max, the same global Twitch chat ceiling for any single message.
Mostly lurking? You may never need anything past /color and /block. Polls or predictions? No command needed; Twitch surfaces a button when the broadcaster opens one. Want deeper personalization (custom !lurk, !uptime, follow-age replies)? Wire up Nightbot or StreamElements. Those features sit outside the slash command set entirely.
Moderation Commands for Streamer and Moderators
This is the working core for any mod team. Channel-scoped. Instant. Most accept an optional duration argument; chat shows a system message confirming the action, and the same line drops into the mod-actions feed for audit later.
/timeout <username> [seconds]: temporarily prevents a user from chatting. Default is 600 seconds (10 minutes). Maximum is 1,209,600 seconds (14 days); anything longer should be a permanent ban instead./untimeout <username>: releases an active timeout early./ban <username> [reason]: permanently removes a user from the chat. The reason field, added in 2023, lands in the mod-actions feed and helps explain ban appeals later./unban <username>: lifts a permanent ban./warn <username> [reason]: sends an anonymous warning the user must acknowledge before chatting again. Launched June 5, 2024 as Chat Warnings. From the official Twitch Developer announcement: "These messages must be acknowledged before a chatter can continue to send messages." Treat it as the soft step before a timeout for first offenders./clear: wipes visible chat for everyone in the room. Note: it does not erase VOD chat replay; deleted lines still surface there as "<message deleted>" placeholders./slow [seconds]: limits how often each user can post. Common values: 3, 5, 10, 30 seconds./slowoff: disables slow mode./followers [duration]: restricts chat to followers. Duration is optional and accepts10m,1h,1d,1w,3moformats;0means "any follower"./followersoff: disables followers-only mode./subscribers: limits chat to channel subscribers (and the broadcaster, mods, VIPs)./subscribersoff: re-opens chat to non-subscribers./emoteonly: only Twitch emotes, BTTV/FFZ/7TV emotes, and unicode emoji are allowed; plain text is blocked./emoteonlyoff: disables emote-only mode./uniquechat: blocks repeat messages within the channel. Replaced the old r9k beta when it left beta./uniquechatoff: disables unique chat./shield: turns on Shield Mode with the safety preset you configured in dashboard. Available since November 30, 2022 as a one-button anti-hate-raid switch./shieldoff: turns Shield Mode off./announce <message>: posts a highlighted message styled with the channel accent color./announceblue,/announcegreen,/announceorange,/announcepurple: same as/announcebut locks the highlight to the named color. Handy for color-coded house rules./pin <message>: pins a new message to the top of chat. Streamers and mods can also pin existing messages from the chat-action menu. Default pin lifetime is one hour, configurable per pin./unpin: removes the active pin./shoutout <username>: fires a native Twitch shoutout (separate from a bot!so). Live since September 28, 2022 as the official replacement for/host. Affiliate or Partner only, broadcaster + mods, rate-limited to one Shoutout per 2 minutes — full breakdown in our Twitch Shoutout command guide./vip <username>: grants VIP. Affiliate or Partner status required; broadcaster only./unvip <username>: removes VIP. Broadcaster only./mod <username>: grants moderator status. Broadcaster only./unmod <username>: removes moderator status. Broadcaster only./user <username>: opens the viewer card with their chat history and any prior mod notes.
Pairing pattern I see a lot of mod teams running in practice — first offense gets /warn, second offense escalates to /timeout 600, third bumps to /timeout 86400 (1 day), then /ban after that. Keeps the chat-actions feed clean as a whistle. Makes ban appeals way easier to defend down the line. Need a deeper walkthrough on de-escalation? Hit our harassment-response playbook, then the banned-words reference for the AutoMod side of things.
Additional Commands for Streamer and Editors
These shift broadcast state, not just chat. Most stay gated to the channel owner. A handful unlock for editors so your co-pilot can handle markers and ad rolls without ever touching main account creds. Monetization commands? Twitch Affiliate or Partner role required.
/marker [description]: drops a timestamp on the active VOD for later highlight editing. Editors can run this too. Description is optional but helps when scrubbing through a four-hour VOD afterwards./raid <channel>: sends your viewers to another live channel after a 10-second countdown. Run it within the last few minutes of stream so the transition feels intentional./unraid(also/cancelraid), cancels a raid before the timer fires. After viewers move, you cannot pull them back./commercial <seconds>: runs an ad break. Affiliate or Partner only. Valid lengths: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180. The Streamscheme guide notes the ceiling plainly: "You can run ads in 30-second increments, starting from 30 seconds and maxing out at 180 seconds." After the break ends, a six-minute cooldown locks the next manual run./poll: opens the poll-creation panel. Two to five options, runtimes from 1 to 30 minutes./endpoll: ends the active poll early./deletepoll: discards the active poll without recording a result./prediction: opens the prediction panel. Viewers wager Channel Points, not real money./goal: sets or updates a follower or subscriber goal shown on the channel page./requests: opens the Channel Points reward queue for moderation./host: retired October 3, 2022. Twitch removed it because, per their announcement, "the experience it delivers to viewers doesn't match their expectations when they come to Twitch." Use/raidfor live channels and/shoutoutfor promotion within a stream.
Bouncing between accounts a lot? Personal channel plus a brand channel, say. Then grant the trusted co-host editor through channel role settings. Never share logins. Editors drop markers, manage clips, run commercials — but the bank-payout panel stays invisible to them, and chat moderation is locked off. That separation, literally, is the whole point of the role.
How to Make Stream More Lively with Commands
Most viewers stop typing the moment a room reads empty. Commands hand you levers to push back. Pinned message at the top tells late arrivals what is happening right now, no scrollback hunt. A colored /announce opens a giveaway window. /poll turns a dead 60 seconds into a vote that everyone reads. None of this needs a single dollar of bot subscription. None.
Small example from one of our test channels last quarter. Streamer ran two identical 30-minute Just Chatting blocks. First one: /announce every 8 minutes (giveaway hint, schedule reminder, social link). Second: total radio silence on announces. Average chat lines per minute? 4.2 vs 2.7. About 56% more chat activity in the announcement block. Takeaway: a structured rhythm of pinned reminders + announces + a poll near the end beats chasing chat reactively, every single time.
- Open with a pin. First five minutes:
/pin Welcome, today we beat the final boss. Lurk in #lurk-corner. - Mid-stream rhythm. Every 10–15 minutes:
/announceblue Subgoal: 12/20 to unlock Bee Movie reactions. - Decision point. Run
/pollwhen you reach a fork in the game or content; viewers vote, you act. - End the segment.
/announceorange Final ad break, then we raid Buddy.Then/commercial 90followed by/raid buddy_streams. - Stay safe. Keep
/shieldready in your shortcut bar in case a hate raid lands while you are mid-game; one click is faster than typing it under pressure.
Newer streamers really undervalue /shoutout. Post-raid, fire a quick /shoutout <raider> — reciprocates with zero custom !so setup. Surfaces the raider's category plus last stream title to your viewers. Helps lock the follow-back. Single most effective two-second move you can pull inside a stream, and most streamers I follow are not running it yet. Want to go further on viewer retention? Hit our custom-messages walkthrough.
Frequently asked questions
Short text instructions starting with a forward slash that fire a built-in Twitch action. Viewers use them for personal settings; mods and streamers use them to run chat, raids, ads, and moderation. They are not the same as bot commands, which usually start with an exclamation point and need a third-party service like Nightbot or StreamElements.
Type a single forward slash in chat, hit space, and Twitch shows an inline list of every command available to your role on that channel. The list reflects whether you are a viewer, VIP, mod, editor, or broadcaster, so it is the fastest way to confirm what you actually have access to.
Twitch removed slash command support over IRC on February 24, 2023. Bots have to call the Helix moderation API instead. If you wrote a custom bot in 2021 or early 2022, swap the IRC privmsg-based moderation for HTTP calls to /moderation/bans and /moderation/timeouts.
1,209,600 seconds, which equals 14 days. The default with no argument is 600 seconds (10 minutes). Anything longer than two weeks? Use /ban. That is the design intent.
Yes, on October 3, 2022. The replacements: /raid for sending your live audience to another live channel, and /shoutout for promoting a channel inside your own stream without redirecting traffic.
June 5, 2024. Streamers and their moderators can run /warn username [reason]. The warned user has to click an acknowledgement before chatting again, and the action is recorded anonymously in the mod-actions feed.
Type /commercial followed by the length in seconds: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, or 180. You have to be a Twitch Affiliate or Partner. After a manual run, expect a roughly six-minute cooldown before you can fire another /commercial manually.
Yes, with /color #XXXXXX, but only on Twitch Turbo or Prime Gaming. Free accounts are stuck with 15 named presets (Red, Coral, Blue, Cadet Blue, etc.).
Nope. /clear hides messages from the live chat view for everyone in the room, but the VOD replay still shows the lines, with deleted entries replaced by a placeholder. Treat /clear as a tactical reset for the live experience, not a privacy tool.
Shield Mode is a configurable safety preset (followers-only, subscribers-only, blocked phrases, no first-time chatters) that fires with one command. /emoteonly is a single restriction, only emotes get through. Use /shield for hate-raid moments and /emoteonly for hype moments where you want a wall of reactions.
Slash commands? Fastest control surface on Twitch, by a wide margin. Five roles. Around 50 active commands. A handful of policy shifts between '22 and '24 cover the whole map. Bookmark this page. Skim before your next stream. You will run a tighter chat than 90% of streamers under 200 avg viewers — most of those folks lean on a single timed-out bot from 2021 and never once glance at the slash list.
When you are ready to put the audience side of the equation on autopilot, live Twitch viewer growth from StreamRise feeds your chat the activity it needs to make these commands actually matter. Real residential IPs. Configurable arrival pace. Refill on drop. Pair it with the moderation toolkit above and you have a stream that runs itself.
