Session Replay iOS Segment Integration

This article covers installation of Session Replay using the Session Replay iOS Segment plugin. Use this option if your app uses Segment's Analytics-Swift library and Amplitude (Actions) destination.

If your app uses an Amplitude iOS SDK, use the Session Replay iOS SDK Plugin.

If you use Segment with other options, choose the standalone implementation.

Session Replay captures changes to an app's view tree: the main view and all its child views recursively. Session Replay then replays these changes to build a video-like replay. At the start of a session, Session Replay captures a full snapshot of the app's view tree. As the user interacts with the app, Session Replay captures each change as a diff. When you watch the replay, Session Replay applies each diff back to the original view tree in sequential order. Session replays have no maximum length.

Before you begin

The Session Replay iOS Segment Plugin requires that:

1. Your application runs on iOS or iPadOS.
2. You use Segment's Analytics-Swift library for ingestion.
3. You use Segment's Amplitude (Actions) destination.
4. You use Segment's Amplitude Plugin.

Supported iOS versions

Session Replay supports a minimum target version of iOS 13.

Quickstart

Add the latest version of the plugin to your project dependencies.

The Segment plugin is available through Swift Package Manager only. Add Session Replay as a dependency in your Package.swift file or the Package list in Xcode.

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/amplitude/AmplitudeSessionReplay-iOS", from: "0.12.8")
]

To integrate with Analytics-Swift, use the AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin target.

.product(name: "AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin", package: "AmplitudeSessionReplay")

Configure your application code:

import AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
import Segment
import SegmentAmplitude

// Initialize Segment
let analytics = Analytics(configuration: config)

// Ensure Segment's AmplitudeSession plugin is added before AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSession())

// Initialize AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin with your Amplitude API key
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.1))

Configuration

Pass the following option when you initialize the Session Replay plugin:

Remote configuration

Enable remote configuration to set Sample Rate and Masking Level in Amplitude.

Block on-screen data

Session Replay supports three ways to block sensitive on-screen data. Masking setting for WebViews is in the Web view support section.

Mask level

Session Replay for iOS supports three levels of masking, configurable with the maskLevel option.

Use this option in the Session Replay configuration.

Privacy methods for UIKit

Session Replay provides an extension on UIView to manage privacy. Import the Session Replay library to access it.

import AmplitudeSessionReplay

Privacy Modifiers for SwiftUI

Session Replay provides an extension on View to manage privacy. Import the Session Replay Library to access it.

import AmplitudeSessionReplay

User opt-out

Set optOut on the plugin to indicate that a user opted out of session replay.

// Pass a boolean value to indicate a users opt-out status
amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.optOut = true

EU data residency

Session Replay is available to Amplitude Customers who use the EU data center. Set the serverZone configuration option to EU during initialization. For example:

// Set serverZone on the AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
let plugin = AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                     sampleRate: 0.1,
                                                     serverZone: .EU)

Sampling rate

By default, Session Replay captures 0% of sessions for replay. Use your SDK's sampleRate configuration option to set the proportion of sessions to capture.

For manual and dynamic sampling, quota planning, and quota accounting, go to Configure Session Replay sampling.

// This configuration samples 1% of all sessions
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.01))

Recording quality

Choose a quality profile to balance replay fidelity with performance and storage. Lower profiles use a lower capture frame rate and lower image resolution. Higher profiles use a higher frame rate and higher resolution. Use QualityProfile.automatic to let the SDK select a profile based on the device. For example, the SDK selects high on newer devices and lower on older ones.

// Use automatic profile selection based on device
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.1,
                                                              quality: .automatic))

// Or set a fixed profile (low, medium, or high)
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.1,
                                                              quality: .medium))

Disable uploads on metered networks

Avoid using the user's cellular data by pausing Session Replay uploads while the device uses a metered network. Session Replay still records data locally. Uploads resume when the device reconnects to Wi‑Fi or another non-metered connection.

analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                              sampleRate: 0.1,
                                                              uploadConfig: UploadConfig(disableMeteredUploads: true)))

Disable replay collection

After you enable Session Replay, it runs on your app until either:

• The user leaves your app.
• You call amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.stop().
• You remove the plugin from Segment with analytics.remove(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin).

Call amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.stop() before a user navigates to a restricted area of your app to disable replay collection while the user is in that area.

Call amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.start() to re-enable replay collection when the user returns to an unrestricted area of your app.

To capture only specific screens, initialize the plugin with autoStart: false so it doesn't start on launch, then call start() and stop() as the user enters and leaves those screens:

// Add the plugin once, without starting capture
let amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin = AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY,
                                                                              sampleRate: 1.0,
                                                                              autoStart: false)
analytics.add(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin)

// Start capture when the user enters a screen you want to record
amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.start()

// Stop capture when the user leaves that screen
amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin.stop()

You can also use a feature flag product like Amplitude Experiment to create logic that enables or disables replay collection based on criteria like location. For example, create a feature flag that targets a specific user group, then add that flag to your initialization logic:

import AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin
import Segment
import SegmentAmplitude

// Your existing initialization logic with Segment
let analytics = Analytics(configuration: config)
analytics.add(plugin: AmplitudeSession())

if (nonEUCountryFlagEnabled) {
  // Create and Install Session Replay Plugin
  let amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin = AmplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin(amplitudeApiKey: API_KEY, sampleRate: 0.1)
  analytics.add(plugin: amplitudeSegmentSessionReplayPlugin)
}

Web view support (Beta)

By default, Session Replay blocks web views in a capture. To enable capture of all WebView components, set captureWebViews to true in the Session Replay configuration.

To mask specific WebView components, use the privacy methods described in Block on-screen data.

// UIKit
webView.amp_isBlocked = false

Map View Support (Alpha)

Session Replay supports capturing map views in iOS applications. To enable map view capture, unmask the map view in your implementation.

// UIKit
mapView.amp_isBlocked = false

// SwiftUI
Map().amp_setBlocked(false)

Log Recording

Session Replay supports recording logs in iOS applications. Configure the limits with recordLogOptions when you initialize the integration, then send log messages through recordLog(level:message:date:).

import AmplitudeSessionReplay

let sessionReplay = SessionReplay(
    apiKey: API_KEY,
    recordLogOptions: .init(logCountThreshold: 2000, maxMessageLength: 4000)
)

sessionReplay.recordLog(level: .error, message: "This is an error log")

If you have implemented a log system, you can make single-point modifications to integrate log recording functionality. See the following examples for more information.

CocoaLumberjack

If you use CocoaLumberjack, you can integrate it with a custom logger provider.

class AmplitudeLogRecordLogger: DDAbstractLogger {

    private weak var plugin: SessionReplayPlugin?

    init(_ plugin: SessionReplayPlugin) {
        self.plugin = plugin
    }

    override func log(message logMessage: DDLogMessage) {
        let recordLevel: RecordLogLevel
        switch logMessage.flag {
        case .error:
            recordLevel = .error
        case .warning:
            recordLevel = .warn
        case .info:
            recordLevel = .log
        default:
            return
        }
        plugin?.recordLog(level: recordLevel,
                          message: logMessage.message,
                          date: logMessage.timestamp)
    }
}

let sessionReplayPlugin = AmplitudeSwiftSessionReplayPlugin()
amplitude.add(plugin: sessionReplayPlugin)

DDLog.add(AmplitudeLogRecordLogger(sessionReplayPlugin))

React Native

If you use console log or react-native-logs with consoleTransport, you can integrate it with RCTAddLogFunction.

RCTAddLogFunction { level, source, fileName, lineNumber, message in
  let recordLevel: RecordLogLevel
  switch level {
  case .error:
    recordLevel = .error
  case .warning:
    recordLevel = .warn
  case .info:
    recordLevel = .log
  case .fatal:
    recordLevel = .error
  case .trace:
    recordLevel = .init("trace")
  default:
    return
  }
  self.sessionReplayPlugin.recordLog(level: recordLevel, message: message)
}

Data retention, deletion, and privacy

Review consent guidance when you implement capture.

Retention period

For native and Flutter SDK retention guidance and the effective date of changes, go to the Session Replay data lifecycle reference.

DSAR API

For replay metadata returned by the DSAR API, go to Session Replay DSAR metadata.

Data deletion

For user and project deletion behavior, go to Session Replay data deletion.

Bot filter

For bot filtering and property-filter restrictions, go to Session Replay bot filtering.

Session Replay storage

If a user opts out tracking in your app, use the optOut configuration option to disable replay collection for that user.

Session Replay temporarily stores replay data data on the file system before it is uploaded. At every initialization, the least recent replays are trimmed to bring the total disk usage down to a maximum size.

Known limitations

Keep the following limitations in mind as you implement Session Replay:

• Session Replay doesn't stitch together replays from a single user across multiple projects. For example:

  • You instrument multiple apps as separate Amplitude projects with Session Replay enabled in each.
  • A known user begins on one app, and then switch to another.
  • Amplitude captures both sessions.
  • The replay for each session is available for view in the corresponding host project.

• The User Sessions chart doesn't show session replays if your organization uses a custom session definition.

• Session Replay cannot capture the following iOS views:

  • Out-of-process iOS views, such as SFSafariViewController
  • AVPlayerLayer backed views