How to add a live voting bracket to your stream with Streamlabs Desktop

Already stream with Streamlabs Desktop? You can put a live voting bracket on your stream in a couple of minutes. Add BracketTap's stream view as a Browser Source, and viewers vote from their phones by scanning a QR code. No accounts, no chat bot, nothing to install.

Streamlabs Desktop also has a built-in feature called Dual Output, which streams a wide (horizontal) and a tall (vertical) version of your scene at the same time. This guide shows you how to put a wide bracket on Twitch or YouTube and a tall one on TikTok, both from the same room, so everyone votes in the same bracket.

The steps follow Streamlabs' own help pages as of October 2026. New to BracketTap on stream? How to create a bracket and add it to your stream with OBS explains the room and the stream view in more detail.

What you need

• Streamlabs Desktop (free from streamlabs.com), on Windows or Mac
• A BracketTap room, open on your phone or a second screen as the host
• For the Dual Output part: one platform for your wide stream (like Twitch or YouTube) and one for your vertical stream (like TikTok), connected under Settings → Stream. TikTok only lets accounts with LIVE access stream from a computer, so check yours first.

Step 1: Create a bracket and copy the stream view link

1. Go to Create a bracket, add your choices, and tap Play with friends 📱. The screen you're on becomes the Host screen.
2. On the host screen, open 📺 Party TV or streaming? Put it on the big screen (or the 📺 TV / Stream button once the game has started).
3. Under Layout, pick Wide · QR right or Wide · QR left for a normal 16:9 stream. Going vertical only? Pick Tall · QR top instead.
4. Under Background, pick Transparent to lay the bracket over your own scene, or Dark, Light or Green screen.
5. Leave Show the join QR code and room code so viewers can vote ticked.
6. Tap Copy link right under the stream view link box. It looks like https://brackettap.com/stream/ABC234?bg=transparent.

The first guide walks through building a bracket and the other settings in this panel.

Step 2: Add the stream view as a Browser Source

1. In Streamlabs Desktop, open the Editor and pick the scene you want.
2. In the Sources panel, click +.
3. Choose Browser Source and click Add Source. Pick Browser Source, not one of the Widgets: widgets are Streamlabs' own overlays.
4. Give it a name like "BracketTap" and click Add Source.
5. In the settings window, paste your stream view link into the URL field.
6. Set Width to 1920 and Height to 1080. For a tall layout, use 1080 × 1920 instead.
7. Leave Custom CSS as it is. The default keeps the page background see-through, which is what Transparent needs.
8. Optional: turn on Shutdown source when not visible and Refresh browser when scene becomes active. The bracket reloads when you switch back to it and always shows the room's latest state.
9. Close the settings window, then drag the corners in the preview to size the bracket.

The stream view scales to whatever size you give it, so it stays sharp if you shrink it into a corner.

Tip: Picked Green screen instead of Transparent? Right-click the source, choose Filters, and add a chroma key filter. With Transparent you don't need a filter at all.

Tip: Need to click something on the bracket, like a 🔇 Click to turn on sound button? Right-click the source and choose Interact. A window opens where you can click on the page like a normal browser. To keep that button off your stream for good, untick Sound effects on stream on the host screen and copy the link again. It then ends in sound=0.

Step 3: Run the game

1. Click Go Live in Streamlabs Desktop as usual.
2. On the host screen, tap Start the bracket ▶ when your viewers are in, then Reveal now and Next matchup ▶ for each matchup.
3. Viewers scan the QR code, or go to brackettap.com/join and type the room code, and vote on their phones.

The stream view follows along by itself. Want it to run without you? Turn on 🔁 Continuous mode on the host screen, and each matchup opens on its own.

Step 4 (optional): Stream wide and vertical at once with Dual Output

Dual Output gives Streamlabs Desktop a second, vertical canvas next to your normal horizontal one. Streamlabs lets you stream to one horizontal and one vertical platform at the same time for free (more destinations need Streamlabs Ultra).

One BracketTap room can drive both streams. Every stream view link points at the room by its code, and the layout is just a setting in the link. A wide link and a tall link for the same room show the same matchup and the same votes at the same moment. You'll add each one as its own Browser Source and show each on one canvas only.

Turn on Dual Output

1. Go to Settings → Video and turn on Enable Dual Output. Or click the Dual Output toggle at the top of the Sources panel.
2. With Dual Output on, the Video settings have Horizontal and Vertical tabs. On the Vertical tab, Streamlabs suggests 1080x1920 at 30 FPS for TikTok. Click Done.

Streamlabs has been changing where this switch lives. If you don't see it in either place, check Streamlabs' help pages for your version. In some versions you pick the orientation for each platform in the Go Live window instead.

Get your two links

1. On the host screen, pick Tall · QR top and tap Copy link. This is your vertical link.
2. Switch Layout to Wide · QR right (or Wide · QR left), untick Sound effects on stream, and tap Copy link again. This is your wide link. With sound off on one link, the sound effects don't play twice.

You can also edit a link by hand. A Wide · QR right link has no layout in it at all, so just delete &layout=top from your tall link. For Wide · QR left, change it to &layout=left. For example:

• Tall, for the vertical canvas: https://brackettap.com/stream/ABC234?bg=transparent&layout=top
• Wide, for the horizontal canvas: https://brackettap.com/stream/ABC234?bg=transparent&sound=0

Add both links

1. Add a Browser Source called "BracketTap wide" with the wide link at 1920 × 1080, as in Step 2.
2. Add another Browser Source called "BracketTap tall" with the tall link at 1080 × 1920.
3. With Dual Output on, sources show on both canvases at first. Hover over each source in the Sources panel and use its visibility toggles to show "BracketTap wide" on the horizontal canvas only and "BracketTap tall" on the vertical canvas only.
4. Position each bracket in its own preview. You can move and resize a source separately on each canvas.

Stream views never count as players, so two of them don't change any vote counts.

Go live in both orientations

1. Click Go Live.
2. Pick your two platforms and choose horizontal or vertical for each one, like Twitch horizontal and TikTok vertical. Add a title for each.
3. Click Confirm & Go Live, then run the game from the host screen as usual. Both streams update together.

Tips for a smoother stream

• Keep the QR code clear of TikTok's buttons. Comments and buttons usually sit over the bottom and right side of a vertical stream. Tall · QR top keeps the QR code and room code away from them.
• Say the room code out loud. Most people watching a vertical stream are watching on their phone, and you can't scan a QR code on the screen you're holding. Every so often, tell viewers to go to brackettap.com/join and type the room code.
• Turn off Screen saver for streams. It's there for TVs left on for hours: about every 10 minutes it swaps the bars or moves the QR code. If your camera is placed around the bracket, untick Screen saver on the host screen before you copy your links.
• Bracket looks stuck? Right-click the source and choose Refresh cache of current page, or switch scenes and back if you turned on Refresh browser when scene becomes active.
• Dropped frames with Dual Output? Two streams take more work. Try a lower bitrate or resolution for one of them, or close apps you don't need while you're live.

FAQ

Do I need two rooms for two streams?

No. Both links point at the same room, so wide and vertical viewers vote in the same bracket, and everyone sees the same reveal at the same time.

Is Dual Output free?

Streamlabs lets you stream to one horizontal and one vertical platform at once for free. Streaming to more platforms, or to two in the same orientation, needs Streamlabs Ultra.

Does this work in Streamlabs Mobile?

Streamlabs Mobile is a different app, and this guide doesn't cover it. Streamlabs says its mobile app can add a link to a website as a custom layer, but we haven't tested BracketTap there yet. If you stream from your phone, see How to add a live voting bracket to your phone stream with PRISM Live.

Does the stream view count as a player?

No. It only watches the room. Only phones that join with the QR code or room code count as players.

Can I run the game from my phone while Streamlabs is on my computer?

Yes, that's the easiest setup. Open the room on your phone as the host, copy the stream view link, send it to your computer (a message or email to yourself works), and paste it into Streamlabs.

Ready to try it? Create a bracket, or grab a ready-made one on Discover. Using OBS instead? See How to create a bracket and add it to your stream with OBS or How to stream your bracket vertically on TikTok and YouTube Shorts with OBS.