If your organization manages a WordPress site with multiple users, you may find yourself looking for tools that will provide you with information regarding user login histories. This information can be used for tracking purposes, allowing you to see who logged into your site and when. It can also be used as a security measure, informing you in the event of multiple failed login attempts. If a given user is repeatedly failing to login successfully, that username may have been compromised. In this article we will review some of the key features of the user login history WordPress plugin and provide basic instructions for its use.
Topics include:
Login Timestamps
The User Login History plugin primarily functions by keeping track of every time a user logs in or logs out. To help keep track of these actions, date-specific timestamps are used to identify when a given user is either logged in or logged out of the WordPress website. The plugin also keeps track of when a user was last online, with a specific timestamp denoting the last time the user was logged into the site.
User Status
In addition to keeping track of login events, the plugin also keeps track of user status. Three primary statuses are used: Online, Offline, and Idle. This feature is helpful for identifying the current level of activity by the various users on your WordPress website. If multiple users have an Online status, you can reasonably conclude that work is currently being done on the site. If multiple users are offline or idle, you can comfortably move forward with site updates without fear of interrupting someone’s current project.
Access Details
Since User Login History helps track login events, it also keeps track of how the user connected to the site. In addition to keeping track of the time spent in an individual session, the plugin records the IP address, browser, and operating system being used to access the site. This can provide insight into which browsers are more popular among your WordPress users, allowing you to optimize your WordPress site for those browsers.
Modifying User Login History Settings
While using this plugin, you may find that the default settings for user statuses are insufficient for your purposes. Fortunately, these settings can be modified in the WordPress dashboard.
- After logging into your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings > User Login History using the left-hand navigation menu.
- On the next page you will see two tabs, Basic Settings and Advanced Settings. Select the Basic Settings tab.
- On the Basic Settings tab, you can modify two values: Online and Idle. Changing the value for Online determines how long a user needs to be logged in before their status is set to Online. Changing the value for Idle determines how long a user needs to be idle before their status is changed to Idle.
- Once done, click Save Changes.
- If you wish to update the Advanced Settings, click the Advanced Settings tab. Only one option is available here for Geo-Tracking. This feature allows the software to keep track of country and time-zone information for users. However, since this feature relies on a 3rd party platform, it is not recommended for use.
Congratulations, you now know how to modify User Login History settings!
Next Steps
To help you keep track of your WordPress content production teams, you may want to consider installing a user role management plugin.
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Is this plugin retroactive? Or does it log only after installing the plugin?
Hello Jan!
Unfortunately, this will likely only log after the plugin has been installed. For more information, you may be able to visit the plugin page directly at https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-login-history/