# Event Explorer: View event streams in real time Source: https://amplitude.com/docs/analytics/charts/event-explorer --- On this page - [Who should use Event Explorer](#who-should-use-event-explorer) - [Event Explorer use cases](#event-explorer-use-cases) - [View a real-time event stream using Event Explorer](#view-a-real-time-event-stream-using-event-explorer) - [Find your user ID or device ID](#find-your-user-id-or-device-id) # Event Explorer: View event streams in real time Even with clean data, knowing which data to use in an analysis isn't always straightforward. Taxonomies can be unclear or counterintuitive, out-of-date events can persist long after deprecation, and events can break unexpectedly. You may also find [this video](https://academy.amplitude.com/use-event-explorer-to-learn-about-your-taxonomy/1311428) on Event Explorer helpful. Amplitude's Event Explorer helps you overcome these and similar challenges by surfacing events and properties in real time for any user flow, so you can see which data is relevant. Find your test account ID and click through the area of your product you want to analyze. Event Explorer shows the events you're triggering **as you trigger them**. You'll know which events correspond with the user actions you're analyzing, and you can add them to any Amplitude chart. Starter and Plus plan users have limited Event Explorer functionality. ## Who should use Event Explorer Event Explorer helps Amplitude users who: - Are unsure which events to use or fear drawing wrong conclusions from the wrong data. - Are part of a large organization with a centralized team that handles most of the instrumentation others rely on for analysis. - Are unfamiliar with their data's taxonomy, work with poor or messy data, or maintain data dictionaries that are hard to keep current. - Want to conduct QA on instrumentation-related issues. - Help other team members decide which events to use in their analyses. ## Event Explorer use cases Event Explorer is most useful in two situations: - Help new and existing users choose the right events to answer their questions and self-serve the taxonomy questions the analytics team typically handles. For example, a company can use Event Explorer to help Amplitude users in different organizations learn the taxonomy the central team created, or to onboard new Amplitude users on how to build an accurate chart or find an event. - Quickly **verify and QA instrumentation** in real time to identify gaps or issues with events. An engineer can use Event Explorer to verify whether they implemented a new event correctly. Data and engineering teams can see in real time whether any given event fires properly, either within a flow or on its own. ## View a real-time event stream using Event Explorer To use Event Explorer to view events as they're triggered, follow these steps: 1. Click *+ Add new user* from the target dropdown. 2. In the modal that opens, search for a user by [IP address, user ID, device ID,](#find-your-user-id-or-device-id) or user property. IP address is the default search criteria, and returns all users with the same IP address. If you haven't set up targeting, the *Event Explorer Setup* modal opens when you click *Event Explorer*. 1. Choose the user you want from your search results and click *Save User For Targeting*. You only need to save a user once. 2. Log into or open your product with your IP address, user ID, or device ID, and begin using it. Open Event Explorer for the project the user is triggering events in, and watch as the events roll in, in near-real time. If you send events to Amplitude periodically (for example, batched), they don't appear until Amplitude receives them. `Identify` events aren't visible in Event Explorer. However, you can view them with the Amplitude Event Explorer Chrome extension. After you find the events most relevant to your analysis, add them directly to any Amplitude chart. To do so, follow these steps: 1. In Event Explorer, click the event you want to include. The properties of that event appear in the right frame. 2. Select any properties you want to include in your analysis. (This step is optional.) 3. Click *Add Event to Chart* to add this event. ### Find your user ID or device ID After you locate your ID, Amplitude remembers it for you, so you don't need to find it again. This ID must have been active in your product during the last 30 days. In some situations, you may want to surface events in Event Explorer while logged out. To do this, search by your device ID or IP address to locate yourself. Methods you can use to locate your ID include: - Searching by IP address: this is Amplitude's default search ID. - Searching by device ID or user ID: click *IP address* and choose either *User ID* or *Device ID* from the dropdown. - Searching on any user property: click *IP address* and choose a different property from the dropdown (for example, choose *email* and enter your email). **Other methods:** - The [Instrumentation Explorer](/docs/data/chrome-extension-debug) Chrome plugin, which works for the JS SDK, identifies your user ID. - If you use Amplitude's iOS SDK or Android SDK, [a tool](https://www.docs.developers.amplitude.com/data/debugger/) identifies your user ID and device ID when running under a debug version. - Your company may have an internal tool or method to find your ID. Consider asking someone in your organization for tips. - Try firing events that your users are unlikely to trigger. Then use *Filter by events* on the [User Lookup](/docs/analytics/user-data-lookup) page to locate the ID that fired those events. This is your user ID. Was this helpful?