Identify logged-in users

Use Umami's Distinct ID and session data features to associate analytics with specific users across sessions and devices, while maintaining privacy.

When to use this#

• Track individual user journeys across multiple visits.
• Understand how specific users interact with your product.
• Connect events from different devices to the same person.
• Build user profiles based on behavior history.

Step 1: Assign a Distinct ID#

When a user logs in, call umami.identify() with a unique identifier:

// After user logs in
umami.identify({ id: user.id });

The ID can be any string up to 50 characters: a user ID, email, or hash. All subsequent page views and events in that session will be linked to this ID.

Step 2: Add session data (optional)#

You can attach additional properties to help identify and segment users:

umami.identify({
  id: user.id,
  name: user.name,
  plan: user.plan,
  company: user.company,
});

Session properties appear in the visitor profile and can be used for filtering.

Step 3: View user activity#

Navigate to Sessions in your Umami dashboard. Use the search bar to find a specific Distinct ID:

1. Enter the user's ID in the search field.
2. Umami shows all sessions associated with that ID across the selected time range.
3. Click on any session to see the full activity history: pages visited, events triggered, and timestamps. Since sessions linked to the same ID (e.g. from different devices) are combined automatically, this view shows the visitor's complete cross-device activity, not just the one session you clicked.

Framework examples#

React (after login)#

function useIdentifyUser(user) {
  useEffect(() => {
    if (user) {
      umami.identify({ id: user.id, plan: user.plan });
    }
  }, [user]);
}

Next.js (App Router)#

'use client';
import { useSession } from 'next-auth/react';
import { useEffect } from 'react';

export function Analytics() {
  const { data: session } = useSession();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (session?.user) {
      umami.identify({ id: session.user.id });
    }
  }, [session]);

  return null;
}

Privacy considerations#

• Use internal user IDs rather than email addresses when possible.
• Umami stores session data server-side. No cookies are used.
• Users who are not logged in remain fully anonymous.
• You can use hashed identifiers (e.g., SHA-256 of the email) if you want to correlate data without storing PII.