Twitch has come a long way from its gaming roots. While live-streaming your favourite gamers remains a core part of the service, you can also find everything from live music to cooking tutorials.

What you might not know is that Twitch has lots of useful features to help you make the most of your time engaging with its vast community. Here’s a quick guide:

Catching up with your favourites or streaming your own content? The Twitch app makes it easy to switch between the two in an instant.

The button in the top-right corner can be toggled between Watch and Create – choose one and the tabs at the bottom of the screen will change accordingly too, so you can quickly hop from recording to sitting back and enjoying your favourite content.

Ready to start live-streaming? You can broadcast your favourite App Store games straight from your iPhone or iPad in a couple of steps. In Creator Mode (tap Create on the top right if you’re in Watch mode), tap Go Live at the bottom of your screen and select Stream Games – tap the game you want to play and start recording. Go through the Stream Setup before kicking off your broadcast. You can monitor the chat and playback with Stream Manager. There’s even a handy Analytics tab to keep you up to date on your important stats.

No one wants to find out they just missed a live session from their favourite streamer! Give Twitch permission to send you notifications and all the hard work is done for you. When you find a streamer you love, tap Follow on their page and tap the bell icon to stay informed about their upcoming content. Prefer specific notifications? Use the Remind Me button on a scheduled event to get a handy reminder for just that stream.

Need to head out in the middle of a live stream? Keep listening on the move. Tap the Settings icon on the top right of the video and select Audio-Only to turn playback into a podcast-style experience. Better yet, select Play In Background in the settings to automatically switch to Audio-Only mode when your mobile device goes to Lock Screen. Now, you don’t need to miss a second of banter.

Diving into chats can be a great way to get involved, but sometimes you just want to focus on the content without distracting messages. Switch off chat by turning your device to landscape mode – you’ll move to a full-screen view and can tap once to bring up your playback options and double-tap to make chat appear or disappear.