View usage data for your SharePoint site

As a SharePoint in Microsoft 365 site owner, you can view information about how users interact with your site. For example, you can view the number of people who have visited the site, how many times people have visited the site, and a list of files that have received the most views.

To view usage data for your site, click the settings gear Settings icon and then click Site usage. You can also click Site contents in the left menu, and then click Site usage in the top navigation bar.

Site admins, owners, members, and visitors can view site usage data.
Site visitors cannot run external user reports or download the 90-day usage report.
Some functionality is introduced gradually to organizations that have set up the targeted release options in Microsoft 365. This means that you may not yet see this feature, or it may look different than what is described in the help articles.
Lifetime stats are shown for sites created after February 2018. Sites created before this date will show stats from February 2018 forward.
Guest users with Site Owner permissions will not have access to site analytics or site usage data.
Guest and anonymous views and visits are included for sites after March 2019 and forward.
Site usage reports are only supported for Worldwide Production Environments and for some Special Cloud deployments of Microsoft 365. For details, see Usage reports for special cloud deployments of Microsoft 365.
User activity reflected in the report will not include usage data collected in the last 60 minutes.
When a third-party tool is used to render PDF files from a SharePoint Online (SPO) library, these views are not recorded, nor are they reflected in the file view statistics in the audit log.

What's on the site usage page

All reports on the site usage page exclude some file extensions, except for the Shared with external users report. Details about the list of extensions that are excluded from each report are shown in Excluded files.
To view the names of the individuals who have accessed your site, your SharePoint administrator will need to activate the SharePoint Viewers setting.
When the SharePoint Viewers setting is enabled, individual names will be seen in the library hover card, not on the Site Usage page.
Usage data for Unique viewers, Site visits, and Average time spent per user is aggregated and displayed based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Overall traffic

Unique viewers

The Unique viewers report shows the total number of individual visitors to the site, regardless of how often they've visited. Usage data accounts for user activity for site content such as pages, documents, and news, including 'news for email' inbox viewers. This data is presented using the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

You can review daily unique viewer trends on your site for the last 7 days, last 30 days, and last 90 days. The overall unique viewer count is available for the last 7 days and the last 30 days.

In the following example, the 7-day view for this site tells us there have been 168 unique views, which is a 30% increase in traffic since last week. On the right side of the graph is the lifetime unique viewers, which is the total number of people who viewed content on this site since February 2018. In this example, the count of lifetime unique viewers is 3,468.

Image of the unique viewers component of the new analytics page

Site visits

The Site visits report shows the total number of visits to content on this site for the last 7 days, last 30 days, and last 90 days. Site content includes pages, documents, and news, including News for Email inbox views. This data is presented using the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The algorithm used to calculate site visits is designed to filter out repetitive, continual operations by the same user on the same item (page, document, or news); for example, when a user repeatedly refreshes a page, document, or news post.

In the example below, the 7-day view for this site tells us there have been 567 site visits, which is a 10% decrease in traffic since last week. On the right side of the graph is the lifetime site visits, which is the total number of people who viewed content on this site since February 2018. In this example, the count of lifetime site visits is 125,498.

Image of site visits in site analytics that shows the number of unique and lifetime viewers.

Average time spent per user

: A small amount of traffic will not be accounted for in this report due to web browser restrictions.

The Average time spent per user report shows the trend of actual time spent on modern SharePoint site pages and news posts by users. The report calculates the time when users are actually active on the page or news post, not counting the time when the page is minimized or when the user has the page open but is inactive. The average metric for a 7-day and a 30-day period is calculated by measuring the total time spent on that page and the number of the unique visitors on that page in the given timeframe. This data is presented using the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

This report currently does not provide the average value for 90-day period and does not support lists, documents, administrative pages (such as the site usage or site permissions page), or News for Email inbox views. Usage on the mobile app is currently not incorporated in calculation of this report.

In the example below, the 7-day view for this site tells us average user spends 6 minutes and 45 seconds actively engaged with your site which is a 40% decrease from last week. There is no lifetime average time spent per user metric.

Image of dwell time in site analytics that shows the average time spent per user on the page.

Usage insights

By device

The By device report shows the distribution of visits to the sites' content organized by the platform (desktop, mobile web, mobile app, tablet, and other devices). This data is available for the last 7 days, last 30 days, and last 90 days.

This report is generated based on "user agent" headers, which are part of the received metadata when a user visits any site content.

Site usage for popular devices

By time

The By time report shows the hourly trend of visits to the site over the last 7 days, last 30 days, and last 90 days for the viewer's local time zone. Darker shades on the chart refer to time slots when there are more views on the content in the site. Use this map to determine to best time to post news and big announcements.

Image of dwell time heat map in site analytics

Shared with external users

Shared with external users

The Shared with external users lists the files that you have access to that are shared with users outside your organization through a sharing link that requires them to log in before they can view the file.

Screenshot of externally shared SharePoint files. The first column icons are file types, the next column is the file name, the third column shown is when the file was last modified, and the fourth column shows who last modified the file.

Export site usage data to a .csv file

Site owners can export the 90-day site usage data to a .csv file by going to the download button on site usage page. Select the button to download 90-day data for unique viewers, site visits, popular platforms and site traffic. For popular content on the site (news posts, documents and pages), the report is for the last 7 days.

To export a site usage report, select the download icon near the upper right corner of the page, usually at the same level with the Site usage analytics text.

Download report button

The site usage report download does not include data for Average time spent per user.
The site usage report download does not include data for Shared with external users in the report.
For more information about exporting the Shared with external users report, see Exporting the Shared with external users report.

Usage reports for SharePoint hub sites

Hub usage page metrics for popular content will vary depending on the viewers permission level. However, the aggregated report for Unique viewers and Hub visits will reflect metrics for the entire hub regardless of viewer permission.
Hub analytics reports support analytics for up to 200 sites in the hub. If your hub contains more than 200 associated sites, then you will only be able to data for the top 200, most recently used sites in this report.

SharePoint hub sites help you meet the needs of your organization by connecting and organizing sites based on project, department, division, region, etc. Admins and members of the hub site can see aggregated usage data for all associated sites in the hub by clicking the settings gear Settings icon and then clicking Site usage.

The Unique viewers and Hub visits reports on the page show aggregated usage data for all sites in the hub for the last 7 and 30 days. The Popular content report shows the top pages, news posts and documents across all associated sites in the hub in the last 7 days. Find out which sites are most popular in the hub by viewing the Sites section within the Popular content in the last 7 days report.

To analyze usage data for only the hub site (without aggregating data from the associated sites), you can use the drop-down in the upper right area of the page next to the download and information icons to switch to seeing data for the hub site only.

Screenshot of the drop-down menu. Hub usage data shows cumulative analytics for all sites in the hub. Site usage data shows analytics for this site only.

Usage reports for special cloud deployments of Microsoft 365

Your organization's SharePoint tenant may not include all of the site usage reporting functionality depending on special cloud deployments scenarios for Microsoft 365. Ask your Microsoft 365 administrator which type of special cloud deployment your organization uses to understand what site analytics report data is available to you.

Site usage details	Availability depending on environment
Unique Viewers Site Visits Site Traffic Popular Content	Available to all SharePoint deployment types except for Office 365 operated by 21Vianet (China)
Average Time spent per user Popular Platforms Export Site Usage Data in excel file	These reports are not available for the following environments: Office 365 operated by 21Vianet (China) Office 365 Germany
Hub Usage	Not available for: Office 365 operated by 21Vianet (China) Office 365 Germany Office 365 GCC Office 365 GCC High Office 365 DoD

Site usage details

Availability depending on environment

Unique Viewers

Site Visits

Site Traffic

Permissions

To edit the permissions for any item in this list, click More next to the item and select Edit permissions. For more information, see Share SharePoint files or folders.

Excluded files

The following files are currently excluded from all reports on site usage and hub usage (except "Shared with external users" report).

.css
.eot
.gif
.ico
.jpeg

.jpg
.jpg5_1
.js
.one
.onebin

.onepkg
.onetoc2
.png
.spcolor
.sptheme

.spfont
.svg
.woff
.woff2
.xsl

Monitoring usage data for apps

You can explore how people in your business are using Microsoft 365 services, such as email, OneDrive, or SharePoint. For more information, see Microsoft 365 Reports in the admin center.

From the Microsoft 365 home page, select the Admin app to open the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Select Reports from the navigation menu. If you do not see Reports in the navigation menu, select Show all, and then select Reports.
Select Usage.

Exporting the Shared with external users report

You can export the Shared with external users report for further analysis and reporting. Site Owners and admins can extract this data to a .csv file by selecting Run Report in the Shared with external users area of the page. You cannot select a time period. Data includes the attributes: Resource Path, Item Type, Permission, User Name, User Email, User Or Group Type, Link ID, Link Type, and AccessViaLinkID.

Get usage analytics for a SharePoint page or news post

With page analytics, you can view information about how users interact with your page or news post. For example, you can view the number of people who have viewed the page over periods of time, average time spent on the page spent per user, and page traffic by time.