Feature: Option to always use Live chat (all messages) instead of Top chat on YouTube streams

Open
#3,740 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
javascript
Domain
frontend

Research direction

Start by locating the extension's handling of YouTube live-stream pages and its settings UI, then inspect how the live-chat controls expose the “Top chat” and “Live chat” or “All messages” states. Test on a live stream using the /live or /watch?v=... patterns; done means an enabled option reliably selects Live chat after loading or reloading, without disrupting other chat views.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Type of feature

  • Feature request

Current behavior

  • On YouTube live streams, the chat panel opens by default in “Top chat” mode.
  • This mode filters messages algorithmically and hides many ordinary user comments.
  • Users who want to see all messages in chronological order must manually switch to the “Live chat” or “All messages” tab every time.

Expected behavior

  • Improve YouTube should add an option to enforce “Live chat” (all messages) as the default chat view on YouTube live streams.
  • When enabled:
    • The extension should detect when the current page is a YouTube live stream (e.g., URL pattern /live or /watch?v=... with live chat active).
    • Automatically select the “Live chat” / “All messages” tab in the chat UI (e.g., by clicking the corresponding button or changing the active tab via existing UI controls).
  • Optionally:
    • Provide a mode to hide or disable the “Top chat” tab on streams if that is technically feasible in the current layout.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open a YouTube live stream that has an active chat.
  2. Observe that the chat panel opens on the “Top chat” tab.
  3. Manually switch to “Live chat” or “All messages” to see all messages in chronological order.
  4. Reload the page and repeat — the chat again opens on “Top chat”.

Technical details

  • Browser: any browser where Improve YouTube is installed (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.).
  • Extension: Improve YouTube (https://github.com/code-charity/youtube), latest version.
  • YouTube layout: current web UI; the extension should detect the live chat mode and the “Live chat” / “All messages” tab via standard CSS selectors or href/text content patterns.

Thanks for considering this enhancement.

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
4.6k
Forks
996
Avg merge
2d 15h
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from code-charity/youtube

All issues in code-charity/youtube

Similar issues

More JavaScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.