FAQ: Why doesn’t the session duration match the length of my Session Recording?

As you watch Session Recordings and use the Visitors’ Table, you may see a column and filter for duration. Session duration is the length of time someone spent on your website during a single visit or session. This begins when the visitor arrives on your website and concludes when the visitor leaves, closes the browser tab/window or becomes inactive for more than 15 minutes. 

As you’re watching a Session Recording, you may notice that the duration of the Session Recording doesn’t always match the duration column in the Visitors’ Table. No, you aren’t missing any data from your visitor’s Session Recording. 

Here’s what happens: When you watch a Session Recording, you’re actively watching the Events that the visitor triggered during their visit beginning with the moment they landed on your homepage or landing page.

You can see these Events populate on the timeline to the right of the Session Recording, circled in orange above. While we hope that all of our visitors convert into users and customers, some may lose interest or switch their browser tab thus leading them to become inactive. As a result, the Session Recording will pause the recording until they return or the session ends when the tab/window is closed or more than 15 minutes of inactivity has passed. 

To sum it up: Session duration includes this inactivity whereas Session Recordings length ends with the last recorded Event before the visitor became inactive. As a result, session duration is naturally going to be longer while the length of a Session Recording may be shorter.