How to use Elgato Stream Deck with any application

Stream Deck is incredibly powerful in its ability to work in nearly any application you use, and in this guide, we’ll take a look at the two ways that Stream Deck interfaces with programs, apps games and websites.

First up, plugins. Plugins is what makes Stream Deck so incredible. You can think of these like apps on your phone – Just like you might have Uber for ride sharing, Amazon for shopping, Discord for chatting with friends, you’ll do the same with plugins on Stream Deck. There’s the OBS Studio plugin for controlling your live stream or recording, there’s the photoshop plugin for making your design workflow easier, and there’s the Discord plugin, so you don’t need to remember which hotkey was push to talk or toggle mute.

Plugins are the best way for Stream Deck to interact with any piece of software or hardware on your computer. The key reason – feedback. With the LCD keys on each Stream Deck, and the Touch Strip on Stream Deck +, you can see real-time status and feedback from the programs you’re using Stream Deck in. This is enabled via plugins and they’re capabilities to communicate bidirectionally – Stream Deck tells the program what to do, and the program tells the plugin what to display on Stream Deck.

There are countless plugins available, from the ones already listed above to soooooo many more, and you can find them all easily on Elgato Marketplace.

Check them out here.

Now, if you might be wondering what happens if a program does not have a Stream Deck plugin available? That’s where hotkeys come into play. Yep, the same hot keys you might use on your keyboard, but with a twist.

Hotkeys are like universal shortcuts – Any program can listen to your keyboard and detect when a certain combination of keys is pressed at the same time. That’s what hotkeys are. Since each program can have its own hot keys, and you probably have a couple applications open at the same time on your computer, there’s a chance that hotkeys can conflict, or in some cases just not register. Stream Deck has a trick up its sleeve for this.

First, Stream Deck keys can be set up to simulate hotkeys. Did you know that pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N creates a new layer in Photoshop? That can be hard to remember. Now, take that key combination, and in Stream Deck, set up a hotkey action. Then add those keys and voila, now you can press a single Stream Deck key to perform that action. Of course, to remember what that key does you can give it a name and a beautiful icon. Look at pre-made icon packs on Elgato Marketplace if you don’t want to design your own.

So, what’s different here? Well, Stream Deck has access to hotkeys that aren’t usually found on a typical keyboard – especially now with modern keyboards becoming smaller and smaller. Did you know that there are F-keys beyond F12? Yep, F-keys go all the way from F13 to F24. Since these aren’t available on nearly any keyboard, no program will set up hotkeys with them and that’s exactly what you can take advantage of with Stream Deck. Since most programs allow hotkeys to be customized, you can set F13 to F24 as the hotkey you want to use. An additional benefit is that there’s a 99.9% chance that no other programs are using that hotkey combination already. Here’s how it works.

First, Stream Deck set up a hotkey action. Click on the action and in the property inspector, click on the little down arrow next to where you would enter your hotkey combination. You’ll see a big list of available keys, inputs and modifiers. Find the F-keys section and select from F13 to F24. Now, go back to the program where you want to set that hotkey and go to the settings or preferences for changing hotkeys. Click on where you can set a custom hotkey or change an existing one, and instead of using a keyboard combination, press the Stream Deck key you just made. You’ll see the hotkey set which you just set up in Stream Deck.

Stream Deck is an incredibly versatile tool that can enhance your productivity and streamline your workflow across various applications. Whether you're using plugins to get real-time feedback and control over your software or leveraging hotkeys to simplify complex commands, Stream Deck offers a seamless and efficient experience. With countless plugins available on the Elgato Marketplace and the ability to customize hotkeys beyond the typical keyboard limitations, Stream Deck truly empowers you to work smarter and more creatively. Explore the possibilities and take your application usage to the next level with Stream Deck.