Now Playing for File watcher

File watcher on screen. Automatically.

The universal source: if your DJ tool can write a text file, Now Playing can read it.

Screenshot: a DJ tool writing its now-playing text file on the left, Now Playing on the right showing the track it parsed from that file.

How it connects

How Now Playing reads File watcher

File watcher watches a file you choose and parses every change as a track update. Most DJ tools can write the current track to a text file in some form, which makes this the catch-all for setups without a dedicated integration: custom scripts, remote machines dropping files on a share, or tools Now Playing doesn't know yet.

From there it's the same everywhere: tracks flow to your overlay, Twitch chat, files, and every other output the moment they go on air.

What works

Any tool that rewrites a text file on track change
Four parse formats, including artist–title splitting
Custom automation and script-driven setups

Known limits

Text files carry no album art
Metadata depth depends on what the upstream tool writes
Prefer a dedicated source when one exists, since it captures more

Setup

Three steps, then forget it's there

1
Download Now Playing free and open it
2
Point the file watcher at your tool's output file
3
Add the overlay to OBS and play
The overlay updates itself for the rest of the set.

VIDEO (60–90s, muted with burned-in captions, poster frame): screen recording of the whole File watcher setup, done once at real speed — open Now Playing, connect File watcher with the exact settings visible on screen, add the overlay to OBS, then play a track and watch the overlay fill in by itself. Ends on the live overlay, no narration needed.

Open the File watcher setup guide

In the app