Installation

Install the Nowly extension in Chrome or Firefox, allow user scripts, install the desktop app on Windows, macOS or Linux, and check that Discord updates.

Requirements

• System: Windows 10 or 11, macOS 11 Big Sur or later, or 64-bit Linux (glibc 2.17 or later).
• Browser: Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera or another Chromium browser, or Firefox.
• Discord: the Discord desktop app, installed and signed in, on the same computer.

1. Install the extension

Install Nowly from the Chrome Web Store (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera) or from Firefox Add-ons. The extension page links to the right store for your browser.

Open the side panel with the toolbar icon or Ctrl+Shift+Y (Cmd+Shift+Y on macOS). The first launch shows a short onboarding with the same steps as this page.

2. Allow user scripts

Presences run as user scripts, so the browser asks for your permission once.

• Chromium browsers: open the extensions page (chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, brave://extensions or opera://extensions), click Details on Nowly and turn on Allow user scripts. On older versions of Chrome, turn on Developer mode at the top right of the page instead.
• Firefox: accept the permission prompt shown during onboarding. If you dismissed it, allow the user scripts permission from about:addons, Nowly, Permissions.

In the side panel diagnostic, User scripts allowed turns green.

3. Install the desktop app

Download it from the desktop app page, which detects your system.

• Windows: run the installer. The build is not signed with a commercial certificate yet, so SmartScreen may warn you: choose More info, then Run anyway, only for a file downloaded from nowly.me. A portable zip exists for manual setups.
• macOS: open the disk image. The app is notarized by Apple.
• Linux: on Debian, Ubuntu or Mint, install the .deb package (sudo dpkg -i nowly-host.deb from a terminal if double-clicking does nothing). On other distributions, extract the .tar.gz archive and run the install script it contains.

The desktop app has no window. The browser starts it when Nowly needs it. Restart the browser after installing it.

4. Open Discord

Start the Discord desktop app. In Discord's User Settings, Activity Privacy, make sure sharing your current activity is turned on. With the Invisible status, nobody sees your activity.

The extension tells two cases apart:

• Nowly Desktop is not detected: install the desktop app, then click Check connection.
• Nowly Desktop is detected but Discord is not connected: open the Discord app, then click Check connection.

5. Install a presence

Open the YouTube presence and click Install, or install it from the Library tab of the side panel. YouTube is the quickest first test.

6. Test

Open a video on YouTube and press play. Your Discord profile should show Watching YouTube with the video title, the channel and a progress bar.

Check that everything works

The side panel diagnostic lists six checks. When all are green, Nowly is ready:

• Extension installed
• User scripts allowed
• Nowly Desktop detected
• Discord connected
• A presence is installed
• Activity detected

The first row that is not green is the next thing to fix. See Troubleshooting.