# User Lookup Action

User Lookup actions allow you to find a viewer on a chosen platform and use their details in the actions that follow in the same command. This is useful for shoutout commands, alerts, and anything else where you have a name or an ID and need the rest of the viewer's information.

This action supports the following options:

- **Platform:** The platform to look the viewer up on. Every supported platform is listed rather than only the ones you are currently connected to, so a saved action still shows what it was pointed at after that platform is disconnected.
- **Username or ID:** The viewer to look up. The value is tried as both a platform username and a platform ID, so either form works and whichever one matches wins.

You may use [Special Identifiers](/docs/reference/special-identifiers) in the Username or ID field, which is what makes this action useful with `$arg1text` and similar.

## Results

After the action runs, the following Special Identifiers are available to every action after it in the same command:

- $lookupusername = The username of the viewer that was found
- $lookupdisplayname = The display name of the viewer that was found
- $lookupid = The platform ID of the viewer that was found
- $lookupavatarurl = The full URL to the viewer's profile image
- $lookupsuccess = Whether the lookup found anyone (EX: True/False)

All five are always filled in, even when the lookup finds nothing. A failed lookup leaves them blank (and $lookupsuccess as False) rather than leaving the raw `$lookup____` text sitting in whatever the next action sends. Check $lookupsuccess with a [Conditional Action](/docs/actions/conditional-action) if you want the rest of the command to behave differently on a miss.

## Looking Beyond Your Own Viewers

The lookup starts with the viewers Mix It Up already has a record of for your channel. If nobody matches, it falls through to the platform's own API to look the person up there.

> That platform lookup is limited to once a minute across all User Lookup actions, so this action cannot be pointed at a list of names and turned into a scraper. If a lookup falls inside that minute, only your existing viewer data is searched, and a viewer Mix It Up has never seen will come back as a miss.