Recordings Configuration Guide – Hotjar Documentation

The Recordings section of Insights is split into three main pages, each with their own guide article. We also have a Recordings troubleshooting FAQ.

Recordings configuration: You're here! This is where you start or configure Recordings capture.
Recordings playback list: This is where you find, filter, and access Recordings.
Recordings player: this is where the magic happens! See how users interact with your site.
Recordings troubleshooting FAQ: Having any trouble with Recordings? Look here!

Exploring the Recordings configuration page

When you start or edit Recordings from your Recordings dashboard, you are taken to the Recordings configuration page.

Each step in Recordings configuration is represented by an accordion element. The options that are available appear as separate accordion elements.

Quantity: the number of Recordings you will capture.
Page Targeting: which pages or JavaScript triggers Hotjar will start capturing a session.
Recording Options: additional options defining how Recordings are captured.
Start Recording: lets you save your settings and activates your Recording with the settings you have selected.

1. Quantity

The number of Recordings you can capture is defined by your Hotjar Plan.

With continuous capture, there's no need to select an option - Hotjar automatically collects up to your daily Recording limit.

Hotjar Business users collect Recordings continuously unless you pause the capture.

Basic users can choose snapshots of 100 Recordings, Plus users can choose snapshots of 2000 Recordings.

Users on Hotjar Basic or Plus plans collect data in Snapshots. Learn more about Snapshots.

You can have one active Snapshot at a time. Once it has finished collecting data you must restart the Snapshot. You'll receive an email to let you know once it has completed.

Continuous Recordings capture will be available for Plus plans in the future

Continuous Recordings capture represents a big change in how Recordings are captured compared to Snapshots, so we are staggering the release to best ensure reliability. We plan for Continuous Capture to become available to all Hotjar Plus users over time.

2. Page Targeting

Page Targeting defines exactly when Hotjar will capture users.

You have two options: all pages, or page/trigger targeting

Hotjar Basic users have one option here: to capture Recordings when the user Visits any page.

For both pageview and javascript triggers, you use text-comparison rules to target strings of text

Hotjar Plus and Business users have two extra options for setting when Recordings will start, based on when a user:

Visits a specific page, with a number of page targeting rule options available.
A JavaScript trigger fires.

These options are useful for when you are only interested in capturing specific pages, even if the Hotjar tracking code is installed on a page you do not want to Record, though be aware that it's often easier to capture all data and use Recording Filters after capture, which allow you to pin-point behaviors you're interested in within your Recordings at any time.

You can click on the + icon next to a rule to add additional rules, allowing you to start Recording on multiple pages, or after multiple triggers.

3. Recording Options

You have three other options available when editing Recording capture settings.

Only click & scroll sessions: This means only sessions where users click or scroll will be captured.
Only 30s+ session: This means only sessions lasting longer than 30 seconds will be captured.
Record keystroke data: by default, Hotjar renders user input as asterisks. This option will allow you to capture some user keyboard input. Selecting this option requires additional setup before it will work.

4. Start Recording

There's not much else to say here! The Start Recording button will close the configuration page, and activate Recordings.

Site-wide settings that affect Recording capture

In addition to these configuration options, there are a number of Site-wide settings that affect Recording capture configuration, including:

Suppressing Personally-Identifying Information (PII)

Hotjar will capture all user keyboard input as asterisks instead of the characters they type. There are additional site-wide settings you can apply to prevent any content that appears directly on your pages from being capture that you may want to enable before starting a Recordings' snapshot.
Blocking yourself from being tracked by Hotjar by IP address

It's not always helpful to watch Recordings of yourself or members of your team. You can block this either via blocking your IP addresses or using our opt-out options. How to Stop Hotjar From Collecting your Data goes into more detail.

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