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Activity

Activity in the admin console shows what your household listens to and how the server copes. It has four sections: Overview, Live now, Sessions and Year in listening.

Everything here is drawn from listening sessions: stretches of listening on one book on one device. The server works them out from the progress the apps already save while they play, so there is nothing for listeners to turn on. A few things follow from that:

  • A session shows up once the app has saved progress twice. Marking a book finished without playing it is not listening.
  • Time listened is measured with the server's own clock between saves, so a phone with its clock set wrong can't inflate it.
  • Days, hours and weekdays are counted in the server's time zone. The Overview names the zone ("times in server time").
  • Listening under an hour reads in minutes ("24m"); longer totals in hours ("2.4h", "128h").
  • Apps released before apps started naming themselves to the server show as "Unknown app" until they are updated.

What the server keeps, for how long, and who can see it is set out in What the server records.

Overview​

Activity > Overview

Activity > Overview covers a period: 7 days, 30 days (the default), 90 days or 1 year, each ending now. The period you pick is kept in the page's address, so a link or a reload opens the same view.

Four tiles sit at the top:

  • Listening hours in the period, with a small line of the daily hours and how many people listened.
  • Sessions started in the period, with their average length.
  • Peak concurrent streams: the most sessions open at the same time, and when that was.
  • Books finished in the period, with the finish rate ("40% finish rate · 2 of 5 started").

Where the period before had something to compare with (the same length, just before it), a tile also shows the change as an arrow and a percentage.

Below the tiles, when someone listened in the period:

  • Listening hours per day (per week for 1 year): a bar for each day, split by the four people who listened most, with everyone else together as "Everyone else". Point at a bar to see who listened how long.
  • The year, day by day: a calendar of the last 12 months, whatever period you picked. The darker a day, the more listening; point at a day to see its hours.
  • When your server listens: listening by hour of day and weekday, with the busiest hour in words ("Busiest: Wednesday 21:00").
  • Top books: the books listened to most, with how many people listened. Click one to open its page.
  • Top people: who listened most, with how many books they listened to and finished. Click a name to open their page.
  • Most heard: the top authors and narrators by time listened.
  • Started vs finished: of the people who played a book in the period, how many have reached 25%, 50% and 75% of it, and how many finished it. Where people stopped lists books where at least two people stopped at the same chapter and haven't come back for 30 days. When the book also has a file that couldn't be read, See the read problem opens it in Library health.
  • How it played: how much listening played directly and how much went through the transcoder, per audio format.
  • Apps in use: the devices that listened, by app and version. A note points out devices running an older build than others on the same platform, and apps from before apps named themselves.

Whatever the period, two cards describe your collection:

  • Library growth: how many books your libraries held over the period.
  • Storage and coverage: the space your books take, by library and by format, and the share of books that have an ASIN or ISBN, chapters and a cover.

If people haven't been active for 60 days, a notice lists them, with when each was last seen (or "never signed in"); click a name to open their page. When nobody listened in the period the page says "No listening in this period": try a longer one.

Live now​

Activity > Live now

Activity > Live now shows every device playing or paused in the last ten minutes, playing first. A device that moved on to another book shows only the book it is on now. The line under the title counts the streams ("2 streams playing · 1 direct, 1 transcoding · 1 paused"), and the page refreshes every ten seconds.

Each card shows the cover, who is listening, Playing or Paused, the book, the chapter and how far they are, plus:

  • Device - the name the device gave when it signed in.
  • App - the app and its version, for example "AudioSilo 1.4.2 · iOS".
  • Playback - Direct or Transcode, with the audio format.
  • Address - the network address the device last connected from.
  • Started - when this session began.

A session closes on its own after 10 minutes without a position update.

Sessions​

Activity > Sessions

Activity > Sessions lists every listening session, newest first: the Person, the Book (with how far the session moved them through it, for example "12% → 18%"), When it started, how long they Listened, the Device and app, and the Playback (Direct or Transcode). Click a person or a book to open their page.

  • Whose sessions narrows the list to one person, or Everyone.
  • See listening sessions in a progress menu opens the list for one person and one book. A "Book: ..." chip shows the book; its × (Show every book) clears it.
  • Show older sessions loads the next page.

Sessions are kept for 400 days unless you change it. After that they are summarised by day, so they still count in the totals and charts but no longer appear in this list.

Year in listening​

Activity > Year in listening

Activity > Year in listening tells a calendar year as a story. Pick the Year (this year, by the server's calendar, and the four before it); the current year reads "so far".

  • The headline: how many people listened, and for how long, and once that passes two days, how many days of stories it makes.
  • Book of the year: the book listened to most, how many people spent how long with it, and the most heard narrator.
  • Books finished, books listened to, the longest run of days in a row with some listening, and the busiest hour. (The busiest hour needs the detailed sessions, so a year past the sessions' keeping time, 400 days unless changed, has none.)
  • The year day by day, as a calendar.
  • Most played: the covers of the books listened to most.
  • Who listened: each person's hours and books finished.

A year nobody listened in says "No listening in" that year.

Each person's listening​

A person's page opens on their Listening tab: their listening year, the books they have in progress and have finished (each with a menu to mark it finished, edit its dates or see its sessions) and their recent sessions. See A person's page.

What the server records​

So that admins can see who is listening and on what, the server keeps a few records about each person. Only admins can see them, and they never leave your server.

  • Devices. For each signed-in device (a phone, a browser, a personal API key): its name, which app it is and its version, when it last connected, and the network address it last connected from. Only the latest address is kept, not a history, and only while the device is signed in: once it signs out, the address is cleared within a day. Sessions themselves don't record addresses; Live now shows the device's latest one.
  • Listening sessions. Who listened to which book, when, for how long, how far through the book, on which device and app, and whether it played directly or through the transcoder. These come from the progress saves the apps already make.
  • Start and finish dates for each book a person reads. Books finished before this was added have their last listen as the finish date, and no start date. An admin can correct the dates.

Listening from before an upgrade. The server started recording sessions in version 1.16. On the upgrade to 1.17 it fills in the time before that from what it already had. The apps have kept their own history of each stretch of listening since June 2026, and those become sessions, shown as Listening history in the Sessions list because the device and app weren't recorded. Anything older, or played offline, is estimated from where each book was left. Estimates count in the totals and top lists, not the day-by-day charts, and the Overview and Year in listening say how much of a period is estimated.

How long it's kept. Detailed sessions are kept for 400 days (about 13 months) unless you set another time in Server > Settings > General, from 30 days to 10 years. After that they are reduced to daily totals: how long each person listened to which book on which day. The device, app and time of day are dropped.

Deleting an account removes all of its records; deleting a library removes the listening records for its books. You can also sign out a single device, leaving the person's other devices signed in.