[SOLVED] Stream to YouTube Live from Mobile Without 1000 Subscribers

One of the biggest issues with YouTube Live Streaming is that you cannot stream from your mobile phone until your channel has one thousand subscribers. Yes – you need 1000 subscribers on your channel before YouTube lets you stream directly from your mobile phone. Here is what YouTube’s support page says about it –

To live stream on mobile, your channel will need to have at least 1,000 subscribers. 

Note that this eligibility threshold does not apply to other live streaming tools. Creators who have less than 1,000 subscribers can still live stream through a computer and webcam

This is quite a big limitation for live streamers because hand-held mobile streaming is convenient and required in some circumstances. Plus, mobile streaming to YouTube is cheap – all you need is a good quality phone and optionally, a ring-light for lighting.

So, does this mean that you cannot stream to YouTube from your mobile until you get 1000 subscribers?

Nope! There is a work-around to this problem that I shall talk about in this article.

By the end of this step-by-step tutorial, you should be able to stream to your brand-new, zero-subscriber YouTube channel from your mobile phone (Android or iOS) – no need for a thousand subs!

Btw, if you are a live-streamer, or you produce live events for your school, college, church, or music band, then check out our Top 12 Ideas for Immediately Improving the Quality of Your Live Streaming for a huge impact!

What are you waiting for? Let’s get going, shall we?

Step 1: Enable Live Streaming on your YouTube Account

The very first thing you need to do is to enable live streaming on your account. To do this, log on to YouTube and click “Create” and “Go Live” from the top-right menu. If it is your first time live streaming, you will need to agree to YouTube’s terms and conditions first. Then, you’ll need to wait 24 hours before live streaming is enabled for your account.

So, complete this step quickly and come back after 24 hours 🙂

Step 2: Install StreamLabs app on your mobile phone

Now, go to either the Google PlayStore for Android or the Apple App Store for iPhones to download and install the StreamLabs app onto your phones. This is the app that we shall use in this tutorial to stream from your phone to YouTube Live.

Streamlabs app for live streaming to YouTube from mobile phone
Screenshot of the Streamlabs app in the Apple App Store

Step 3: Connect StreamLabs app to your YouTube account

When you open the StreamLabs app, you get the login screen that prompts you to log in and provides you several options – Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Periscope, Picarto, or a custom RTMP.

Streamlabs app to stream to YouTube Live on mobile without 1000 subscribers

Click on the YouTube icon and sign in with your Google account. This should give the StreamLabs app access to your YouTube account which it needs to be able to stream directly to it.

streamlabs login 2

After you sign-in, the app will ask you what you will be using the Streamlabs app for? In our case, let’s choose the first option – “Stream Yourself” using the mobile phone’s camera and microphone

streamlabs options

Next, give the Streamlabs app permission to access your phone’s camera and microphone.

Streamlabs Give permissions

Then, the app is going to ask you where you want to broadcast to. We signed in using our Youube account, so let’s stream to YouTube. The app provides us three options for YouTube streaming –

  1. Stream to an existing event
  2. Start a scheduled event (an event that you scheduled using the browser interface)
  3. Or create an event and start it.

Let’s choose the 3rd option and start a new event.

IMG 7199

Enter the title of the event and an option description. I chose Public access – but you can make it private if that’s what you’re looking for.

IMG 7200

In the next few steps, let’s see how to start and stop a YouTube live streaming session!

Step 4: Start Streaming to YouTube Live without 1000 Subscribers

In the previous step, if you hit the “Go Live” button, the Streamlabs app will start streaming to YouTube, and this will bypass the 1000 subscribers rule for streaming on YouTube via mobile phones. Great, right? You can see my streaming session in the image below – and I have only 10 subs!

IMG 7202

After you’re done streaming, you can hit the “Stop” button and end broadcasting.

IMG 7204

The Streamlabs app also gives you the option to finish the event or let it remain active. This is a useful option if you are planning to switch from mobile to another streaming source. For example, you might want to stream from OBS Studio to YouTube, as described in this article.

IMG 7205

Conclusion

YouTube is such a great service for Live and VOD streaming. Millions use it daily to watch videos that others uploaded or to upload VOD content or live stream. I hope this post helps you in live streaming from your mobile phone to a YouTube channel that does not have 1000 subscribers yet. After you get 1000 subs, you can switch to streaming from YouTube’s app directly.

If this was useful, please comment and share this article with your friends so that they can start streaming on a new YouTube channel as well 🙂

Until next time, stay safe, and happy streaming!

25 thoughts on “[SOLVED] Stream to YouTube Live from Mobile Without 1000 Subscribers”

  1. cannot go live.
    got error
    “tihs youtube stream cannot be used as it was created with ingest type webrtc instead of RTMP”

  2. The first step is not working. When I open my YouTube app and click the “+” symbol to create a live streaming a message pops up that my device is not eligible to go live…then options to click “learn more” or “Ok” is given to choose. Meaning I cannot fulfill your step one. Can I ignore step one and go ahead with step2 to install the streamlab app?

    1. Lime Pro Roast Gamerz

      Bro, he is telling to enable the live stream option in Computer, not in mobile. I tried it in private and it worked.

  3. Thanks a lot friend I am planning to start my new youtube channel on relaxing videos and do a live streaming… this article going to help me a lot..I hope the procedure of live streaming for sleep and relaxing videos will be the same… thanks a lot dear 😊

  4. Adam Benjamin Arena

    Omg. This has me flipping my lid. It works. The date is 11-8-2021. I was building my YouTube channel with live streaming and then the bastards put that restriction on needing 1000 subs to be able to stream so it left my channel on hold. Now I have an Oculus quest and this workaround will save my channel. Thank you so much! 11 Subscribers so far.

    1. ameliathetraveler

      yeah I had the same issue like a year ago when I started my channel, I wanted to live stream to paint but the block happened so I gave up on that lol

  5. Yeah I don’t stream directly to YouTube in stereo!! That was the problem I was having with Facebook live now it’s sums the audio to mono. The question I asked to do with how do I give people a link to my YouTube channel or to Facebook to tell them I am going live? I was a little confused I assumed that on YouTube it goes to all my subscribers but on Facebook if I wanted to pick and choose a certain audience how do I do that? Thanks for the heads up on this one in advance!!

    1. because you only ACTUALLY need 50 unless you’re a minor (under 17) I suspect this person is paid to promote this app

  6. I’m new to YouTube live stream,
    One of my friend sent me a scheduled YouTube live stream event link, she asked me to broadcast this meeting via my laptop/cam, she will send me a stream key,
    Anyone knows how I can host her YouTube live stream even ??
    I’m really confused .. should I login to her YouTube account or I can use my YouTube account to broadcast her meeting ??
    Pls help 😭

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