How to Use Movmash: A Step-by-Step Guide

Movmash is a room you share with someone. You put something on — a video, a screen, a game — and everyone in the room sees the same thing at the same second, with chat and reactions beside it.

That is the whole idea, and the app is built so that setting it up never becomes the event. This guide walks through it in order: what is on the home screen, the five ways to start something, how to invite people, and what happens once you are in a room.

The home screen

Everything starts here, and it is split into four parts:

• The carousel at the top — ready-made things to do together: a playlist to relax to, a date idea, a game
• Actions — the five ways to start watching something, covered below
• Popular Games — the games you can open a room with, straight from the home screen
• For You Two — the side rail, with gift ideas for the person you keep watching with

The sidebar on the left mirrors the same things: Home, Watch Together with its four sources underneath it, Game, and About.

Step 1: Choose how you want to watch

There are five buttons, and picking the right one is most of the job:

• Screen Share — for Netflix, Disney+, Prime, or anything else behind a login. You share a tab and everyone watches it
• File Share — for a video file on your own computer. The file is streamed from your device, not uploaded anywhere
• Add URL — for a public video link: Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, or a direct stream
• YouTube — for YouTube specifically, including whole playlists
• Join with a Code — for when you are not starting anything, and somebody has sent you a room code

The rule of thumb: if the video has a public link, use Add URL or YouTube — everyone streams it at full quality from the source. If it is behind a login, it has to be Screen Share.

Step 2: Add the source

Whichever you picked, the next step asks for the thing you want to watch — a link to paste, a file to choose, or a screen to pick. Once it is added, the room opens with it ready to play.

You do not have to decide everything up front. A room has a playlist, so you can add one video to get started and queue more later without closing anything.

Step 3: Share the room link

Every room gets its own address that looks like app.movmash.com/room/ALQN3 — the last part is the room code. There are two ways to get someone in:

• Send the link. They click it and they are in. Nothing to install
• Give them the code. They press Join with a Code on their own home screen and type it in

Rooms are link-only. There is no public list of rooms and no way to stumble into yours, so the only people who can join are the ones you invited.

Step 4: Watch together

Once the room is open, the video takes the main area and a panel sits down the right-hand side with four tabs:

• Chat — messages, plus a running log of what happened: who joined, who started the video, who skipped ahead
• Playlist — what is queued up next
• People — who is in the room
• Settings — the room controls

Playback is shared. When you pause, everyone pauses. When you skip to 44:04, everyone lands on 44:04 — you can see exactly that in the chat log in the screenshot above. Nobody has to count down, and nobody drifts thirty seconds ahead.

Along the bottom of the panel there is a row of reactions. Tapping one sends it floating across the video for everyone, which is usually faster than typing "that bit was great" while the scene is still going.

How screen sharing works

Screen sharing is what you use for the paid streaming services, and it is the part people most often get slightly wrong. The page itself walks through it in three steps, and the tips on it are worth repeating:

• Share a tab, not your whole screen. This is the big one — a tab gives noticeably better audio than sharing the entire desktop
• Keep that tab playing and active while you watch
• Make sure you are allowed to share the content you are about to put on

If your guests can see the picture but hear nothing, it is almost always the audio checkbox in the browser’s own share dialog. Stop the share, start it again, and tick the audio option before confirming.

Playing games in a room

A room does not have to have a video in it. There are three games, and starting one opens a room the same way a video does — so the link you share works exactly the same.

• Tic-Tac-Toe — two players, quick rounds
• Connect 4 — two players, a bit more thinking
• Jigsaw — one to eight players, and co-operative rather than competitive

There is a full walkthrough of all three games here, with a separate guide for Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect 4, and the co-op jigsaw.

What you get on the free plan

Worth knowing before you plan a whole evening around it. The free plan gives you:

• 2 people per room
• 45 minutes of watch time per day
• 720p screen sharing

That is genuinely enough for an episode, a few YouTube videos, or a game night — and the room itself shows how much you have left, so it does not stop without warning.

It is not enough for a full film in one sitting. The paid plans remove the daily limit, raise screen sharing to 1080p, and add video and voice calling while the video plays — which is the feature most couples actually upgrade for. Current plans and prices are on the pricing page.

Four mistakes worth avoiding

Starting the room before you know what you are watching

Open the source first. Starting an empty room and then negotiating what to watch is how a movie night becomes forty minutes of scrolling.

Using Screen Share when you did not need to

If the video has a public link, sharing your screen makes it worse for everyone: lower quality, and it all depends on your upload speed. Screen sharing is for content that has no shareable link — not a default.

Sharing the whole desktop instead of one tab

The audio is worse, and every notification you get becomes part of the show.

Forgetting what the other person sees

They are joining a room they have never seen before. Send the link a couple of minutes early rather than at the exact moment you want to press play.

The short version

Pick how you want to watch. Add the thing. Share the link. Press play.

If you want a specific walkthrough instead, there are guides for hosting a YouTube watch party, watching Netflix together long distance, and watching movies together for free.