Can Twitch Streamers See Your Email?

One example would be PayPal, where the streamer can see the name and email used for your PayPal account in the confirmation email they will receive for your donation.

If you want to make a donation without these concerns, you can do so through bits and subscriptions (know that this will, unfortunately, lead to Twitch taking a cut of your donations before they pay out the streamer).

Seeing Email Addresses Through Donations

The major concern about what information is shared with a streamer typically surrounds donations, subscriptions, and bits. To put your mind at ease, know that Twitch pays the streamer through their own accounts, so no account information is given upon payment.

Bits and subscriptions are included in this payment, so unless you put your account information in to be read by a text-to-speech bot, you will be fine. 

Donations are a little different and can vary in their given information. If you are concerned about sharing your information through these sources, you may want to look into them in a little more detail, as they can vary from business to business.

However, to cover a few of the more popular donation methods:

• PayPal

  PayPal will show the name and email address registered for the PayPal account in the confirmation email sent after payment. This is an automated process set by PayPal and is required. The only way around this is to send a donation through a business account instead.

• Streamlabs

  Streamlabs does not store credit card information upon donation. However, “the information is sent straight to the credit card processor [where] they store and verify the information” (source).

• StreamElements

  StreamElements can be set to require a Twitch login to tip (this is done to help stop donation scams and trolling) but will not display credit card information to the streamer (source).

• Cash App

  If users choose to donate money via Cash App, they won’t have to worry about streamers seeing their email. That being said, sending money on this platform will reveal your name.

What Can Twitch Streamers See About My Account?

While a streamer cannot gain access to their subscribers’ personal information through Twitch, there are a few things that they can still access for analytical purposes.

Some of the more obvious ones would be Twitch usernames of both subscribers and followers; by extension, they can also access their channels by searching their usernames.

There is also some additional information that streamers can see about their subscribers through their analytics, including:

• Current Twitch username (they can’t even see old ones)
• Initial subscription date
• The current subscription tier
• How long have they been subscribed overall
• Their longest subscription streak
• The subscription type
• If they are a founding subscriber (the first 10 Prime or paid subscribers for Affiliates, or first 25 for Partners)

Protecting Online Privacy Concerns on Twitch

As streaming platforms go, most understand that most users will want to keep their information private. As previously mentioned, you can join Twitch without worrying about others having access to your real name or your email address.

That being said, if you remain active on a Twitch account and become friends with other users, you will still want to limit what information you share with them. Many people begin to feel comfortable in chats with fewer viewers and can sometimes overshare. This could potentially lead to unwanted attention.

Can Twitch Streamers See Your IP Address?

Another common concern many Twitch users have when watching Twitch is whether or not the Twitch streamer can see their IP address. Rest assured that they cannot see it. They can’t even see your location.

Some other Twitch users have this concern because, occasionally, Twitch will ban an IP address from a specific Twitch channel. While this doesn’t often happen, if the platform sees that a streamer has banned multiple accounts from the same IP address, Twitch can shadowban an IP address.

This will help prevent banned users from simply making another account and continuing with such behavior. Unfortunately, this is not a permanent solution due to the prevalence and ease of access to VPNs for Twitch.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can Twitch Streamers See My Credit Card Info?

  Twitch streamers cannot see your credit card info. All subscriptions and bits are paid to Twitch, who then takes their cut and pays the streamer. As such, a streamer will not gain access to any of your account information.

  Most popular donation sites also keep this information private, but if you are concerned, you should look into the company in greater detail to be certain.

• Can Twitch Streamers See My Real Name?

  Twitch streamers cannot see your real name unless you interact with them through a 3rd party like PayPal. You can avoid streamers seeing this by donating Twitch Bits or subscribing. While this means the platform will take a cut, you won’t need to worry about the streamer seeing your payment processing information.

  Twitch subscriptions and bits will display your username to the streamer and be listed in Twitch’s analytics. If your username is your actual name, then maybe consider a name change. Donations are a little different, as the required information can vary, as listed above.

• Can Twitch Streamers See My Age?

  If you are accessing age-restricted content as a minor, you may worry that a streamer can see your age. While a streamer can’t see the age of a particular viewer, they may ask you if you are old enough to watch the content if you are acting young. Some Twitch handles also imply that the viewer is a child.

  Twitch takes its age requirement very seriously. Children under 13 should not be on the platform, and mature content should be watched by those 18+.

• I Just Received an Email from a Streamer!

  Actually, you received an email from Twitch on behalf of the streamer.

  Twitch allows streamers to email all their subscribers (not followers) through the Creator Dashboard. This feature is given to streamers to help with event organization, alerting their subscribers to major changes, etc.

  However, Twitch only allows them to enter the title and body of the email and does not show the streamer any email addresses for privacy reasons.

Conclusion

Twitch has the privacy of both their streamers and their viewers on top of their list of concerns and ensures that all private information is secure from external sources. If you are hanging out in your favorite stream and saying hi, you do not need to be concerned about your personal information being given out.

If you donate to a streamer, you can look into the company you are donating to in greater detail to ensure that your information is safe.

Still, it is incredibly rare for any additional private information to be given out that the company does not make explicitly clear. Just stay away from random links promising giveaways and princes looking for someone to offload their wealth to in the chat, and you will be perfectly fine.