How to Clear OBS Text Source with a Hotkey

Streamlining your live stream workflow often requires clearing on-screen text quickly. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up a custom keyboard shortcut (hotkey) in OBS Studio to instantly clear or hide a specific Text (GDI+) source layer, ensuring seamless transitions during your broadcasts.

Method 1: The Visual Clear (Using Hide Hotkeys)

If your primary goal is to make the text instantly disappear from your stream, the quickest and most reliable native method is to assign a hotkey to hide the text source.

  1. Open OBS Studio.
  2. Click on Settings in the bottom-right corner (or go to File > Settings).
  3. Select the Hotkeys tab from the left-hand menu.
  4. Use the search bar at the top to type the exact name of your specific text source layer.
  5. Locate the action labeled Hide ‘[Your Source Name]’.
  6. Click on the empty field next to it and press the key combination you want to use as your shortcut (for example, Ctrl + Shift + C).
  7. Click Apply and then OK.

Pressing your custom shortcut will now instantly hide the text layer from your canvas and stream. You can also assign a separate key to the Show action to make it reappear when needed.

Method 2: Actually Clearing the Text (Using a Text File)

If you need the actual text data within the source to be wiped out completely (rather than just hiding the layer), you can set the source to read from a text file and use a shortcut to empty that file.

Step 1: Set Up the Text Source in OBS

  1. Create a blank text document on your computer and name it stream-text.txt.
  2. Open OBS, double-click your text source to open its Properties.
  3. Check the box for Read from file.
  4. Click Browse and select the stream-text.txt file you just created.
  5. Click OK.

Step 2: Create a Shortcut to Clear the File

To empty the text file with a single keystroke, you can use a simple script wrapper.

For Windows Users (using AutoHotkey): 1. Download and install the free utility AutoHotkey. 2. Right-click your desktop, select New > AutoHotkey Script, and name it clear-text.ahk. 3. Right-click the file, select Edit Script, and paste the following code (replace the path with your actual file path): autohotkey ^!c:: FileDelete, C:\path\to\your\stream-text.txt FileAppend,, C:\path\to\your\stream-text.txt return 4. Save the file and double-click it to run it.

Now, pressing Ctrl + Alt + C (represented by ^!c in the script) will instantly delete the contents of the text file, which OBS will immediately reflect by clearing the text source on your screen.