How to shout out someone on Twitch as a mod

To shout out someone on Twitch as a mod, type /shoutout username in the channel’s chat, or click their name in chat and use the Shoutout button on their viewer card. You must be a moderator of the channel (or the broadcaster), and the channel must be live. Twitch allows one shoutout every 2 minutes, and the same person once every 60 minutes.

The rules on this page were checked against Twitch’s developer reference for Shoutouts (“Send a Shoutout”, dev.twitch.tv) on November 1, 2026.

Send a shoutout with the /shoutout command

1. Open the chat of the channel you moderate while it is live.
2. Type /shoutout followed by the person’s Twitch username.
3. Press Enter.

For example, to shout out the channel examplestreamer:

/shoutout examplestreamer

Twitch shows a Shoutout card in chat for that channel. Viewers who don’t already follow them see a Follow button they can click without leaving the stream, and the channel you shouted out gets a notification in its activity feed.

Send a shoutout from the viewer card

1. Click the person’s name in chat to open their viewer card.
2. Click Shoutout.

This sends the same shoutout as the command, under the same rules.

Who can send a shoutout

Twitch lets the broadcaster and the channel’s moderators send a shoutout. VIPs and regular viewers can’t.

A bot command such as !so is a different thing. It is an ordinary chat message from the bot, so anyone the bot lets run it can trigger the message. The bot can also send Twitch’s own shoutout, but only when it holds Twitch’s shoutout permission for the channel, and that shoutout follows every rule below.

You can’t shout out yourself: a broadcaster can’t send a shoutout to their own channel. The person you shout out doesn’t need to be live.

Shoutout cooldown

Twitch limits how often a channel can send shoutouts. Both limits apply to the channel, so every mod on it shares them.

Scope	Wait
Any shoutout from the channel	2 minutes before the next one
The same person	60 minutes before they can be shouted out again

A shoutout sent inside either window is refused. It isn’t saved for later, so you need to send it again once the wait is over.

Why a shoutout fails

What happens	Why	What to do
The shoutout is refused while the channel is offline	Shoutouts only work while the channel is live and has at least one viewer	Wait until the stream is live with viewers, then send it
The shoutout is refused right after another one	The channel sent a shoutout in the last 2 minutes	Wait 2 minutes and send it again
The shoutout is refused for one person but works for others	That person was shouted out from this channel in the last 60 minutes	Wait until an hour has passed since their last shoutout
The command does nothing or says you can’t use it	You aren’t a moderator of this channel	Ask the broadcaster to make you a mod
The shoutout is refused for the channel’s own name	A channel can’t shout out itself	Shout out someone else
The username isn’t recognised	There is no Twitch account with that username	Check the spelling of their Twitch username

Set up automatic shoutouts with StreamerCatalyst

StreamerCatalyst can send shoutouts for you and wait out Twitch’s cooldown instead of losing them.

• Modomation auto-shoutouts greet the people on a list you choose (fellow streamers, regular raiders, community pillars) when they chat. The message changes with whether they are live or offline and what they last played, and the default cooldown is once per stream. You can also have it send Twitch’s own shoutout alongside the chat message. See Auto-shoutout.
• Chatters !so lets the broadcaster and mods post a shoutout message in chat, and can send Twitch’s own shoutout with it. See Shoutouts.
• The shoutout queue is shared by both. When Twitch’s 2-minute cooldown is running, the shoutout waits its turn and goes out as soon as Twitch allows it, instead of being dropped. A person Twitch already shouted out in the last hour is skipped, and the queue holds while you’re offline. Check it in chat with !soq. See Shoutout queue.

Twitch’s own shoutout needs the moderator:manage:shoutouts permission. If you connected StreamerCatalyst before it was added, use the Reconnect button beside the native shoutout setting. See Modomation: Authentication & permissions.

The broadcaster or a Lead Mod sets these up in the dashboard; other mods can see the settings but not change them. For a step-by-step setup, see the recipe Setting up auto-shoutouts with Modomation.