How to Add Emotes to Twitch

This article explains how to add emotes to Twitch, including how to make and upload your own emotes to your Twitch channel.

How Do You Add Emotes on Twitch?

Twitch has some great emotes you can use in chat all over the platform, but creators are also able to add their own emotes. Emotes are added to Twitch through the Creator Dashboard, and they’re available to both Twitch Affiliates and Partners. If you just have a basic Twitch account, then you’ll need to level up to Affiliate or Partner status before you can add emotes.

If your account is enabled to add emotes on Twitch, here’s how to do it:

1. Click your avatar in the upper right corner of the Twitch website, and select Creator Dashboard.

2. Click Viewer Rewards.

3. Click Emotes.

4. Click + under Tier 1.

   Emotes added to Tier 2 and 3 are only available to viewers who subscribe at those levels, and you may also have access to Bit emotes and animated emotes depending on your progress as a Twitch Affiliate or Partner.

5. Click the upload icon (arrow pointing up inside gray box outline).

6. Select an emote file from your computer, and click Open.

7. If you’re happy with the way the emote looks, type a code for the emote into the emote code field, and click Upload.

   If you aren’t happy with the way your emote looks, click the Auto-resize tab, use an image editing program to create 112x112px, 56x56px and 28x28px versions of your emote, and upload each one individually.

8. Repeat this process to add additional emotes.

   You can only add a limited number of emotes, but Affiliates and Partners get the ability to add more emotes as they hit milestones like adding new subscribers and streaming to more viewers.

When Can You Add Emotes on Twitch?

You get the ability to add emotes on Twitch as soon as you are accepted into the Affiliate program. Once you have Affiliate status, you can upload a limited number of emotes for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 subscribers. Affiliates also gain the ability to add bit tier emotes, but only after a viewer cheers a specific quantity of bits.

When you hit Partner status, you gain the ability to add emote modifiers to tier 2 and tier 3 emotes. You also get the ability to add cheermotes. Partners typically have the ability to add a lot more emotes than Affiliates as well, because Twitch increases the number of emotes you’re allowed to add over time as you hit milestones.

Can You Add Twitch Emotes Without Being an Affiliate or Partner?

The only way to add emotes to Twitch is to be an Affiliate or Partner. As a viewer, subscribing to your favorite streamers gets you access to their emotes, which you can use in their chat and the chats of other streamers. You also get access to a special set of emotes if you subscribe to Twitch Turbo.

The other way to gain access to new emotes on Twitch is to use the Better Twitch TV browser plugin. If you’ve ever seen Twitch users type strange things like catJAM, PepeHands, or OMEGALUL in chat, those messages are being sent by users of the BTTV plugin. For example, instead of seeing catJAM in chat, users of the BTTV plugin see an animated emote of a cat. 

Here’s how to access BTTV emotes:

1. Navigate to BetterTTV's site's.

2. Click Download for (Browser)

   BTTV is available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

3. Click Get.

   Depending on your browser, you may see a button like Add or Install.

4. If prompted, allow the browser to install the extension.

5. Navigate to Twitch's site, click your avatar, and click BetterTTV Settings.

6. Scroll down, and make sure the boxes are checked next to the emotes you want to use.

7. You’ll now be able to use and see BTTV emotes in Twitch chat.