How to Link OBS Scenes to Specific Profiles

This article explains how to link your OBS Studio profiles and scene collections so they load together automatically. While OBS Studio natively treats profiles (which control settings like resolution and stream keys) and scene collections (which hold your actual scenes and sources) as separate entities, you can easily force them to load together using custom desktop shortcuts.

Why OBS Separates Profiles and Scene Collections

In OBS Studio, Profiles store your encoding, broadcasting, and audio settings. Scene Collections store your actual layout, overlays, and capture sources. Because they are managed in separate menus, changing one does not automatically change the other. The most efficient way to link them is by creating custom desktop shortcuts using launch parameters.

Step-by-Step: Link Profiles and Scenes with Desktop Shortcuts

By creating custom shortcuts, you can click a single icon (e.g., “Twitch Stream” or “YouTube Recording”) and OBS will launch with both the correct profile and scene collection pre-loaded.

1. Get the Exact Names: Open OBS Studio. Note down the exact spelling and capitalization of the Profile and the Scene Collection you want to link.

2. Create a New Shortcut: Go to your desktop, right-click an empty space, select New, and then click Shortcut.

3. Locate the OBS Executable: Click Browse and navigate to your OBS Studio installation path (usually C:\Program Files\obs-studio\bin\64bit\obs64.exe). Click Next and then Finish.

4. Open Shortcut Properties: Right-click your newly created shortcut and select Properties.

5. Modify the Target Field: In the Shortcut tab, look at the Target field. It will look like this: "C:\Program Files\obs-studio\bin\64bit\obs64.exe"

6. Add the Launch Parameters: At the very end of the Target path (after the closing quotation mark), add a space and input the following parameters, replacing the placeholder text with your actual profile and scene collection names: --profile "Your Profile Name" --collection "Your Scene Collection Name"

   Example of a completed Target field: "C:\Program Files\obs-studio\bin\64bit\obs64.exe" --profile "Twitch Streaming" --collection "Main Overlay Setup"

7. Save and Rename: Click Apply, then click OK. Right-click the shortcut, select Rename, and name it something recognizable, like “Launch Twitch OBS.”

You can repeat this process to create multiple shortcuts for different setups, such as one shortcut for recording offline videos and another for live broadcasting, ensuring the correct settings and scenes always load together.