Your stream overlays, on your own screen.
DeskLayer takes any overlay you’d add to OBS as a browser source — Tangia alerts, a chat box, a goal bar, a subathon timer — and floats it over your game or desktop. You see every alert when your viewers do, without alt-tabbing to OBS.
One small .exe. Nothing to install, and no Node or OBS plugin needed.
If it works as a browser source, it works here
DeskLayer doesn’t care which service made the overlay. Paste the same link you’d give OBS.
Alerts
Follows, subs, raids, cheers and donations from Tangia, StreamElements, Streamlabs, Ko-fi and the rest.
Tangia interactions
Sounds, TTS and on-screen effects your viewers trigger, visible while you play.
Chat
A transparent chat box pinned to a corner, so single-monitor streamers can read chat in-game.
Goals and counters
Sub goals, follower goals, death counters and bit bars.
Timers
Subathon timers, countdowns and break timers, including PaciTime.
Now playing
Song widgets for Spotify or your music bot, so you know what’s on.
Polls and predictions
Live results from overlay-based polls while the vote runs.
Your own pages
Anything you build in HTML, served from a website or from your own PC.
Set up in about a minute
-
Copy the overlay link
In Tangia (or any overlay service), copy the browser-source URL you already use in OBS.
-
Paste it into DeskLayer
Click Add overlay, paste the link and save. Pick full screen or drag it into a box.
-
Go live
Alerts now pop up on your screen, over your game, and stay off your stream so viewers don’t see them twice.
Made for playing while you stream
- Clicks go straight through
- Overlays never grab your mouse or keyboard, so they can sit over your game all night.
- Kept off your stream
- If OBS captures your whole screen, DeskLayer hides itself from the capture, so alerts don’t show up twice.
- Sound, just like OBS
- Alert sounds play on their own. Mute any overlay if OBS already plays that audio.
- Drag it where you want
- Turn on edit mode, drag the box and resize it from any edge. Zoom shrinks a 1080p overlay to fit.
- Every monitor
- Put alerts on your game screen and chat on your second monitor, each at the right size.
- Hotkeys that work in-game
- Hide everything, reload, or move things around without leaving your game.
- Recovers on its own
- If your connection blips or an overlay crashes, DeskLayer reloads it for you.
- Light on your PC
- It uses the Edge engine already built into Windows, so the whole app is about 1 MB.
Questions
Will my viewers see alerts twice?
No. “Hide from screen capture” is on by default, so OBS Display Capture and Window Capture skip DeskLayer’s windows. Game Capture only records the game, so it never sees them. You need Windows 10 version 2004 or newer.
Does it work with fullscreen games?
It works with games running in borderless or windowed mode, which is what most streamers use anyway. In exclusive fullscreen the game covers every window on your PC, including DeskLayer.
Do I need OBS running?
No. DeskLayer loads overlays itself, straight from the service. OBS can be open or closed.
Is my overlay link safe?
Overlay links often include a private key. DeskLayer stores them only on your PC and never sends them anywhere except the overlay service itself.
Windows says it “protected your PC”.
That’s SmartScreen being cautious about a new app it hasn’t seen much yet. Click More info, then Run anyway. You can check the file against the SHA-256 on the releases page.
Does it cost anything?
No. DeskLayer is free.