OBS Plugin Install (macOS)

The Beam OBS plugin integrates directly with OBS Studio on macOS. Once installed, OBS’s normal Stream button triggers Beam’s resilient delivery path — no workflow change for your operators.

Beta — Apple Silicon only

The current beta plugin runs on Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3, M4 series) only. Intel Mac and non-macOS support is in progress.

This is an unsigned development build. macOS Gatekeeper will require a one-time manual approval after copying the plugin — see the step below.

What’s in the installer package

• beam-obs.plugin — the OBS plugin bundle
• obs-plugin.sample.json — a sample Beam configuration file with placeholders for your credentials
• INSTALL-macOS.md — an offline copy of the installation instructions

Download the latest Apple Silicon beta, then verify its SHA-256 checksum before opening it:

c7cafc75719ae3bd8557a41341c2a75335ac8ee69bb6e5602115e5422e050b9f  beam-obs-plugin-darwin-arm64.zip

On macOS, run shasum -a 256 beam-obs-plugin-darwin-arm64.zip and confirm the output matches.

Recommended OBS output settings

Configure these values in OBS Settings before you start streaming. Beam reads what OBS produces and never modifies your OBS profile, so these settings live in OBS itself.

Setting	Recommended value
Output (Scaled) Resolution	1920×1080
Common FPS Value	60
Encoder bitrate	6000 kbps, CBR
Video encoder	h264_videotoolbox (Apple Silicon hardware)
Audio encoder	aac
Keyframe interval	2 s (keyint=120 at 60 fps)

Why these values: 1080p60 is the Beam-recommended target as of 2026-05-07. The cloud ingest and reassembly path is bitrate-agnostic and absorbs 1080p60 cleanly. 6000 kbps CBR matches the standard Twitch / YouTube reference for 1080p60 streaming and gives good visual quality at predictable upload bandwidth.

If your encoder or upload bandwidth cannot sustain 1080p60, fall back to 1080p30 at ~4500 kbps CBR or 720p60 at ~4000 kbps CBR. Both are supported.

Installation steps

1. Quit OBS completely

Make sure OBS is fully closed before you copy the plugin. You can confirm this by checking that no OBS process appears in Activity Monitor.

2. Copy the plugin bundle into OBS

Copy beam-obs.plugin into:

~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/plugins/

Create the plugins/ folder if it does not exist:

1. Open Finder.
2. Press Cmd+Shift+G.
3. Paste ~/Library/Application Support/obs-studio/ and press Enter.
4. If there is no plugins folder, create it.
5. Drag beam-obs.plugin into that folder.

3. Allow the plugin in macOS Security settings

Because the beta build is unsigned, macOS will block it on first use.

1. Open OBS once — it will either fail silently or show a security warning.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
3. Scroll down to the Security section. You should see a message about beam-obs.plugin being blocked.
4. Click Allow Anyway.
5. Quit OBS and relaunch it.

4. Create the Beam configuration folder

Create this folder if it doesn’t already exist:

~/Library/Application Support/Beam/

You can do this in Finder with Cmd+Shift+G → paste the path → create the folder if missing.

5. Create the Beam config file

Copy obs-plugin.sample.json to:

~/Library/Application Support/Beam/obs-plugin.json

Open obs-plugin.json in a text editor and fill in your values:

{
  "stream_id": "your-stream-id-here",
  "api_key": "sk-live-your-api-key-here",
  "runtime_mode": "full",
  "capture_mode": "streaming"
}

Setting	What to put here
stream_id	Your Stream ID from the Beam dashboard (Settings → Stream)
api_key	Your API key from the Beam dashboard (Settings → API Keys)
runtime_mode	Use full for real deliveries. The plugin defaults to a safe no-upload mode until this is set.
capture_mode	Leave as streaming unless support specifically asks you to change it.

6. Configure OBS output settings

In OBS Settings, apply the values from the Recommended OBS output settings table at the top of this page (1920×1080, 60 fps, 6000 kbps CBR). The plugin will pick these up automatically — there is no Beam-side switch to flip.

7. Launch OBS

1. Open OBS.
2. Confirm the Beam dock appears in the OBS interface.
3. Use the normal Stream button to start Beam delivery.

Notes on capture modes

streaming mode (default and recommended): Beam owns the OBS Stream button flow. When Beam is enabled in the dock, pressing Stream sends output through Beam’s delivery path. When Beam is disabled, OBS streaming continues normally to whatever service you had configured before.

recording mode: A legacy option that mirrors OBS recording output instead. Only use this if support specifically asks you to.

State and log files

Beam writes state between sessions to:

~/Library/Application Support/Beam/obs-plugin-state.json

Do not edit this file manually. If you need to reset Beam’s state, quit OBS, delete this file, and relaunch.

Verifying the installation

After launching OBS:

• The Beam dock should appear in the OBS layout.
• The dock shows upload status while streaming is active.
• A green indicator means segments are being delivered to Beam.

If the dock doesn’t appear, see Troubleshooting.