How to Control Which Sessions You Record

🎥 Programmatically start and stop recordings

⚠️ Note: For mobile, see iOS + Android privacy controls. React Native & Flutter support is planned.

1. For Older Projects: check 'Authorized domains for replay' in project replay settings → add your domain if present.

2. Set disable_session_recording: true in your config.

Web

posthog.init('phc_HVcGJdGDtkcvV1qUuz5bDrMf987gskGUpFH1nV6ufov', {
  api_host: 'https://us.i.posthog.com',
  defaults: '2025-05-24',
    disable_session_recording: true,
    // ... other options
})

1. Start manually with posthog.startSessionRecording() → stop with posthog.stopSessionRecording().

⚠️ By default, startSessionRecording obeys ingestion controls (sampling, etc.) → you may call start and still not record.

💡 Pass override options to bypass:

posthog.startSessionRecording(true) // start ignoring all ingestion controls
posthog.startSessionRecording({
  // you don't have to send all of these
  sampling: true || false;
  linked_flag: true || false;
  url_trigger: true || false;
  event_trigger: true || false
})

👾 With URL trigger conditions

1. Start recording only when the user hits a specific URL.

2. After the match, recording keeps going even if they navigate away.

🧠 Short in-memory buffer → you still see how they got there.

🤖 With Event trigger conditions

(posthog-js ≥ 1.186.0) Start recording only when a specific event fires.

After the event, recording keeps going even if they navigate away.

🧠 Short in-memory buffer → you still see how they got there.

⛳️ With feature flags

Use a feature flag to record only flagged users.

⚙️ Steps:

1. Create a boolean or multi-variant flag

2. Go to replay ingestion settings

3. Link your flag under Enable recordings using feature flag

🧪 Sampling

Record a % of all sessions → set rate in replay ingestion settings.

💡 Recommendation: start at 100%, dial down as needed → so you know your volume.

⚠️ Note: Sampling reduces how many, not which sessions you record.

🎛️ Combining controls

(web SDK ≥ 1.238.0) Combine multiple triggers → choose any match vs. all match.

💡 Example — Exception event trigger + checkout URL trigger + 20% sampling:

➕ With any matching

Captures 20% of every session + any session with an exception event OR on checkout.

✖️ With all matching

Captures 20% of sessions on checkout AND with an exception event.

⌛️ Minimum duration

Set a minimum session duration in replay ingestion settings.

🎯 Useful for excluding too-short sessions (e.g., < 2s bounces).

⏲️ Limitations

Min duration is in seconds.

• 🟢 If duration passed → session sent

• 🟡 If not yet → buffered in-memory

⚠️ Risk: high minimum + multi-page short visits → browser may drop buffered data → session recorded but beginning missing.

Missing the start? → reduce the minimum duration.

🤑 Billing Limits

Set a billing limit → ingestion stops when reached.