Connecting YouTube

Why you create your own Google credentials

Stream Manager runs entirely on your PC and there is no Stream Manager server, so there is nothing of ours between you and YouTube. Your sign-in goes straight from Google to the app, and the code that uses it is open source for anyone to read. Most apps with a sign-in button use one shared credential, which puts every user on one quota and one approval. Being open source, we would also have to publish that credential, where anyone could use it or get it revoked for everyone. Your own credentials mean your quota is yours alone and nothing about this project can cut off your access. It's a longer first-time setup, once, and the guide walks through every step.

What happens to those credentials afterwards is covered on the Google app and privacy page.

What the setup involves

The app's built-in guide has 8 clear steps with copy and paste when needed.

1. Create a Google Cloud project
2. Enable the YouTube Data API
3. Set up the consent screen
4. Add the two required links
5. Publish the app
6. Create the credentials
7. Hand the credentials to Stream Manager
8. Connect and verify

Publishing the app looks alarming at first. But an unpublished Google app is treated as "in testing", and it drops your connection roughly every seven days, which is an issue. Publishing makes the connection stick. Nothing is submitted to Google for review, and nobody but you can sign in to it.

Twitch is far easier. It is a single form in Twitch's developer console: register an application, choose a client type, paste in the redirect address Stream Manager gives you, and copy the ID and secret back into the app.