Tracking Total Sessions in Your App with Mixpanel

Mixpanel offers three different ways to define what counts as ONE session, and you can choose the definition that best fits your product:

By default, Mixpanel considers ONE session as: - A group of events performed by a single user within a continuous time frame - Starting when a user performs any non-excluded event - Ending when the user is inactive for a specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes) - The maximum session length is 24 hours, as sessions reset at midnight in your project's timezoneFor example, if a user performs "Event A" at 1:00pm, then "Event B" at 1:10pm, and doesn't perform any other events for 30 minutes, the session ends at 1:10pm with a total duration of 10 minutes How Sessions Work.

You can also define ONE session as: - Starting when a user performs a specific "Session Start" event (e.g., "Login") - Ending when the user performs a specific "Session End" event (e.g., "Logout") - If a user performs multiple "Session Start" events in sequence, only the first one triggers a new session - Sessions also reset at midnight Event-Based Sessions

Alternatively, ONE session can be defined as: - A group of events that share the same value for a designated "Session ID" property - When the value of this property changes, a new session begins - Events without the Session ID property are not included in session calculations - Sessions also reset at midnight Property-Based SessionsYou can change your session definition at any time in Project Settings, and the changes will apply historically to your data.Would you like more information about any specific session definition method?

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To get the total number of sessions in your app through Mixpanel, you have several options:

The most straightforward way is to use the Insights report to track the "Session Start" events: 1. Go to the Insights report 2. Select "Session Start" as your event 3. Choose the time period you're interested in 4. The total count will show you the number of sessions during that periodThis works because Mixpanel automatically computes sessions from the events you send, generating virtual "Session Start" and "Session End" events based on your session configuration.

You can also use the "Sessions with event" measurement in Insights: 1. In Insights, select an event you're interested in 2. Click on the measurement dropdown (usually set to "Unique Users" by default) 3. Select "Total Sessions" from the measurements options 4. This will show you the number of sessions that contained that specific eventInsights Measurements explains that this function counts "the number of sessions that contain [event]."

If you're planning to implement Session Replay or want to estimate session volume, you can use the Session Start events as a proxy metric. This is mentioned in the Session Replay FAQ where they note: "If you use timeout-based query sessions, Total Session Start events in the Insights report could be a good estimate."Remember that how sessions are calculated depends on your session configuration in Project Settings, which can be: - Timeout Based (default): Sessions start with any event and end after inactivity - Event Based: Sessions start and end with specific events - Property Based: Sessions are defined by a session_id propertyYou can adjust these settings at any time in your Project Settings, and the changes will apply historically to your data.

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