Help & support

Open the video, click the Couchwave icon in your toolbar, press Roll film. The invite is copied automatically, so paste it to your friends.

They open your invite link and press Join the party, or click the Couchwave icon → Join → enter the 6-character seat code.

Yes. Choose Schedule, pick a time and add a note. Guests can add it to their calendar from the invite page, and everyone with the extension gets a reminder 10 minutes before.

For the best experience, yes. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu and Max protect their videos with DRM, which usually hides the picture when a tab is screen-shared (viewers see a black screen). With "Everyone hits play", Couchwave keeps each person's own player in perfect sync at full quality. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and most other sites work for everyone either way.

Reload the video tab and press Sync playback in this tab in the popup. Check the badge in the corner of the video: "In sync", "Catching up" or "Ad playing". If an ad plays for the host, the party waits for it to finish. A slow connection can take a few seconds to catch up after a big jump.

The host holds the remote. They can hand it to everyone or to specific people in the lounge → Host controls. If you leave the party or lose connection, you get full control of your player back immediately.

Couchwave runs on major video sites out of the box. For any other site it asks once, when you sync a video there, so it can find the player. It never reads anything else on the page.

Click the Couchwave icon → This tab for one-click sharing with sound. Or choose Screen, window or another tab to open the Studio and pick from Chrome's picker. For sound, choose a Chrome tab and leave "Also share tab audio" on.

Chrome tab: picture and sound. App window: picture only (a Chrome limitation). Entire screen: picture, plus system sound on Windows and ChromeOS. On macOS, share a tab to include sound.

Viewers: press F or the fullscreen button in the player. Chat stays visible over the video. Hosts: fullscreen the video you're sharing as usual, or use the preview in the Studio.

Viewers receive the size of the shared tab, so make it big or fullscreen. Raise Picture quality in the Studio or Settings. Picture quality also adapts to each viewer's connection.

Couchwave → Settings → Set up microphone, then allow it when Chrome asks. If you blocked it before, click the mic icon in the address bar of that tab and choose Allow.

Use headphones. Couchwave also lowers the movie while someone talks; you can switch that in Settings.

Check your internet connection first. If the Couchwave server itself is down, you can switch to another Couchwave server: click the Couchwave icon → Settings → Party server, enter its address, and press Test connection. Use default switches back.

Everyone in a party must use the same server. When a host uses a different server, their invite link includes it, and Couchwave asks before switching you. You can also paste the whole invite link into the Join box.

Hosts can remove anyone from the lounge (⋯ next to their name). Removed people can't rejoin that party. Report a public party from its invite page, or email us.