How to check the last seen in Mixpanel kapa.ai
How to check the last seen in Mixpanel kapa.ai
How to check the last seen in Mixpanel kapa.ai
In Mixpanel, “Last seen” usually refers to the user profile property $last_seen, which Mixpanel labels as Updated at in the UI.
What it means
- $last_seen / Updated at = the timestamp of the last time the user profile was updated, not the last event they did. [Updated at meaning; Default user properties]
How to check it
1. Go to Users (User Profiles) in your Mixpanel project.
2. Open any user’s profile.
3. Look for the Updated at (or $last_seen) field in the profile properties table.
Via API / export
If you export profiles via the Engage API, $last_seen is included in the $properties object for each profile. [Exporting profiles]
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The knowledge sources indicate that:
- $last_seen (shown as Updated at) is “the last time a user profile property was set or updated” and is only changed by profile updates, not by events or sessions. [Updated at meaning; Default user properties – ingestion]
- Sessions (Session Start / Session End) are virtual events computed from event data, not from profile updates. [Sessions overview; Sessions FAQ]
The docs do not state any automatic link between $last_seen and session starts, even in cases where a session begins when a user property is set. $last_seen will update whenever you perform a profile $set/$set_once (unless $ignore_time: true), regardless of whether that coincides with a session start. [User profiles FAQ; Python people_set example]
So, it is not guaranteed that $last_seen corresponds to “last session start”; it simply reflects the most recent profile update time, which may or may not align with when a session began.
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When you update or set a user property at login (for example, right after calling identify and then $set / people.set), Mixpanel will update the profile’s “Updated at” ($last_seen) timestamp.
From the docs:
- $last_seen / Updated at = “the last time a user profile property was set or updated.” It changes only when profile properties are updated via $set / $set_once, not when events or sessions occur. [Updated at meaning; Default user properties – ingestion]
So if, on login, your initialization logic does something like:
``` js mixpanel.identify(userId); mixpanel.people.set({ plan: 'Pro' });
LBKSthat `people.set` will cause `$last_seen` to be updated to that time (unless you explicitly pass `$ignore_time: true` in server-side SDKs). [[Python people_set example](https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/tracking-methods/sdks/python#storing-user-profiles)]
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The knowledge sources do not explicitly state what happens if you call a profile update ($set / people.set) with values that are identical to the existing ones.
What is documented:
- $last_seen (Updated at) is “the last time a user profile property was set or updated.” [Updated at meaning; Default user properties]
- $last_seen is skipped only if you pass $ignore_time: true in the profile update (server-side examples show this). [Python people_set example]
However, the docs do not clarify whether Mixpanel internally checks for value changes before deciding to update $last_seen. So based on the available documentation, I cannot say with certainty whether calling people.set with the same values will or will not update $last_seen.
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You can do this in two main ways, depending on whether you want to work inside Mixpanel or via export / JQL.
1. Using JQL (per-user last time of an event)
JQL lets you compute per-user aggregates from events. The event objects have distinct_id, time, and name (event name). [JQL events spec]
To get, for each user, the most recent timestamp of a specific event (e.g. "Purchase"), you can:
``` js function main() { return Events({ from_date: "2025-01-01", to_date: "2025-12-31", event_selectors: [{ event: "Purchase" }] }) .groupByUser(function(state, events) { // state will hold the latest time for this user state = state || null; for (var i = 0; i < events.length; i++) { var t = events[i].time; if (state === null || t > state) { state = t; } } return state; }); }
LBKS`groupByUser` guarantees events for each user are processed in time order, and returns one record per user with their aggregated value. [[groupByUser](https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/reports/apps/jql#groupbyuseroptional-additional-keys-reducer-functions)]
This gives you:
LBKS```
{
"key": ["<distinct_id> "],
"value": <latest_timestamp_for_that_event>
}
You can then filter this result set (e.g. by date range on value) in your consuming code.
2. Using Raw Export + SQL (outside Mixpanel)
If you export events via the Raw Event Export API or Data Pipelines, each row has event_name, time, and distinct_id. [Raw export API; Common SQL queries]
You can then run a SQL query like:
```
SELECT
distinct_id,
MAX(time) AS last_event_time
FROM
<your dataset> .mp_master_event
WHERE
event_name = 'Purchase'
GROUP BY
distinct_id;
LBKSThis returns **one row per user**, with the timestamp of the **most recent** occurrence of that event. Users with only one such event will still appear once, with that single timestamp.
---
The knowledge sources do not describe an in-UI “last time did event X per user” filter directly; they focus on JQL, raw export, and SQL patterns, so the two approaches above are the documented ways to compute and filter on “last time a specific event was triggered” at the user level.
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