A TwitchRec watchlist is a list of eligible Twitch broadcasters you want the service to monitor. It does not contain video files and it does not consume a recording slot while every channel is offline. Capacity is evaluated when an actual broadcast is discovered.
You can add supported public channels without a preconfigured broadcaster list. The watchlist does not bypass login, subscriber restrictions or creator blocks. A public Twitch page does not by itself grant permission to create or redistribute an archive.
Add a Twitch channel correctly
The easiest identifier is the channel login in the official URL. For https://www.twitch.tv/twitchdev, send:
/watch twitchdev
You can also send the complete official HTTPS channel URL. A numeric broadcaster ID is accepted either as a number or as id:<number>. A display name is not a separate identifier: Twitch logins are lowercase, while the displayed capitalization can change.
TwitchRec resolves the submitted value through public guest discovery, stores the numeric broadcaster ID internally and replies with the channel it added. Twitch's Get Users API documents the distinction between id and login; keeping both avoids relying on display text as the identity key. The default guest path does not require a developer application or viewer account.
Review and remove entries
Send /watchlist to see every channel, current plan usage and paired removal controls. Use the on-screen remove button when possible so you do not need to retype the login. /unwatch twitchdev is the text-command equivalent.
Adding the same resolved broadcaster twice is idempotent and does not consume a second slot. Removal affects future admission. If a capture is already running for other eligible recipients, removing your entry does not terminate their recording.
Plan limits
The current TwitchRec limits are:
- Free: two watched channels, one active recording and the first hour of a delivered live.
- Basic: twenty-five watched channels, twenty-five active recordings and up to eight hours per live.
- Pro: one hundred watched channels, one hundred active recordings and up to eight hours per live.
Manual /rec capacity is separate: one for Free, ten for Basic and twenty-five for Pro. A referral reward is granted after five qualifying referrals and adds at most one watchlist slot. It does not raise duration or active-recording limits.
Watchlist additions and active-recipient admission are transactional. If two channels go live at nearly the same time, the database serializes the final capacity decision so a Free account cannot accidentally occupy two last slots. Unknown or inconsistent plan data fails to Free limits rather than granting a larger allowance.
How automatic discovery works
TwitchRec checks public guest live state for watched broadcasters. Twitch assigns each broadcast session its own stream ID. The recorder uses that session identity, not only the permanent channel, so a completed backlog from yesterday does not block a new live today. Public-interface failures are treated as errors, not falsely reported as an offline creator.
When a playable source appears, one capture can serve several recipients watching the same broadcaster. The service stores each recipient separately and recalculates bans, watchlist membership and current plan limits before final delivery. A user removed or blocked before delivery is not included merely because they were eligible at discovery time.
The start notification is sent only after the first closed media segment is durably committed. A discovery result without media does not produce a misleading “recording started” message. Capture recovery reuses the same logical job and cannot replay that notification intentionally.
Delivery after the live ends
The end of a source does not trigger a separate “processing” message. TwitchRec closes its final segment, validates and merges the complete recording, prepares a single-frame player cover and samples timestamped frames across the duration for the contact sheet.
An authorized Saga helper publishes the media album to the private TwitchRec Cloud Archive first. The main bot then copies that exact archive album to eligible users at a bounded rate. The video and contact sheet stay in the same Telegram album; an album rejection is retried rather than degraded into unrelated messages.
When a watchlist does not start
Common reasons include:
- the channel is offline;
- the submitted login or URL does not resolve;
- the source requires an account or subscription, or the creator has been blocked;
- the account has reached its active-recording limit;
- Twitch reports live metadata before a usable media source exists;
- a temporary API, source or network failure requires a later retry.
Use /status to distinguish watchlist size from currently active recordings. Repeated failures use bounded backoff so one broken source does not consume the entire discovery loop.
Privacy and account state
TwitchRec never needs a Twitch password. Telegram account state, plan, watchlist, referrals, support and durable delivery rows remain product-local. A confirmed Telegram block suspends automatic delivery without deleting the watchlist; a new incoming message can restore reachability. Generic network errors do not prove that a user blocked the bot.
Only add broadcasters whose content you are authorized to record. Review Twitch's Developer Agreement and the TwitchRec creator-rights policy before enabling unattended capture.
Last reviewed against the guest implementation: 9 September 2026.