Google Analytics Unique Vs New Vs Returning Users Explained In ...

Last Updated: February 17, 2025

The unofficial definitions of GA4 Users that Google won’t tell you (But you need to know for accurate data extraction and analysis!)

My definitions are more accurate than behaviour based definitions published by Google because they are rooted in technical identifiers rather than inferred user actions.

Behavior based definitions create misleading assumptions that don’t align with how GA4 actually processes user data.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – Total vs Active, New, Returning users

GA4 User – A GA4 user can be a user ID, client ID, app Instance ID, user who turned on Ads Personalization and/or modelled user.

GA4 Total Users – It represents the overall number of unique User IDs, Device IDs (client ID, app Instance ID), users who have turned on Ads Personalization and/or modelled users who have triggered any event on your website or app within the specified date range.

GA4 Active Users – Users who, within the specified date range, either triggered an engaged session, are considered new users, or triggered an event with the ‘engagement_time_msec’ parameter.

GA4 New Users – Users who don’t have a pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app within the specified date range.

GA4 Returning Users – Users who do have a pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app within the specified date range.

The classification of a user as “new” or “returning” is dependent on the date range of the report.

This dual classification means:

1) New users can also be reported as returning users and vice versa.

2) The sum of new users and returning users can exceed the total number of users in a given date range.

Introduction to Users in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

GA4 identify users based on the reporting identity you selected. 

If you selected blended reporting identity, GA4 uses the first available method in the following order to identify a user: User ID, Device ID (client ID for websites or the app Instance ID for mobile apps.) and then finally, data modelling.

So, depending upon the user identification method used, a GA4 user can be a user ID, client ID, app Instance ID, user who turned on Ads Personalization and/or modelled user.

Difference between Device ID and User ID

A device ID is unique to a specific browser-device combination, whereas a User ID represents a unique logged-in user.

For websites, the device ID is stored as Client ID in the ‘_ga’ cookie. For mobile apps, the device ID is stored as the App Instance ID.

GA4 automatically generates and uses the device ID. Whereas a User ID is manually implemented and assigned by the website/app owner.

Since device ID is unique to a specific browser-device combination, it changes with different devices or browsers.

User ID remains consistent across devices and browsers for the same logged-in users.

Since a Device ID is limited to a single device or browser, it can not be used to track users across different devices and browsers. This is not the case with User ID.

‘Total Users’ in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Total users represent the overall number of unique User IDs, Device IDs, users who have turned on Ads Personalization and/or modelled users who have triggered any event on your website or app within the specified date range.

GA4 may over-report on total users.

The unique Device IDs can also be non-human like bots, crawlers, developers traffic, misconfigured client-side or server-side tracking, spam traffic.

However, User IDs are less likely to be non-human as website owners implement them for logged-in users.

So GA4 may over-report on total users as it could also include non-human traffic.

Always use the blended reporting identity to avoid underreporting of ‘Total users’ in GA4.

I recommended blended reporting identity because it uses all available user identification methods.

‘Active Users’ in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Active users are those who meet at least one of the following criteria:

1) Triggered an engaged session.

2) Are considered as new users within the specific date range.

3) Triggered an event with the ‘engagement_time_msec‘ parameter.

An engaged session in GA4 is defined as one that meets at least one of the following criteria:

1) Lasts 10 seconds or longer.

2) Has at least two page views or screen views.

3) Results in a conversion event (aka key event).

Active users are generally referred to as ‘users’ in GA4 and are predominately used in funnel reports.

Active users can also include non-human traffic, but the probability is generally lower than ‘total users’ as active users have stricter criteria for inclusion, which can filter out some non-human traffic.

How you can improve the quality of ‘Active Users’ in Google Analytics 4.

To improve the quality of ‘Active users’, change the ‘Adjust timer for engaged sessions’ setting to 60 seconds.

By increasing the timer to 60 seconds, you are essentially raising the bar for what counts as an engaged session.

This would likely reduce the number of active users reported in GA4, but those who are counted would be less likely to be non-human.

To change the ‘Adjust timer for engaged sessions’ setting to 60 seconds in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your GA4 property.
2. Click on “Admin” in the lower-left corner of the screen.
3. In the Property column, click on “Data Streams”.
4. Select the web data stream you want to modify by clicking on its name.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Configure tag settings”.
6. In the Settings section, click on “Show more” to see all available options.
7. Scroll down and click on “Adjust session timeout”.
8. Under “Adjust timer for engaged sessions”, click on the dropdown menu and select “60 seconds”.
9. Click “Save” in the upper right corner of the screen.

After completing these steps, GA4 will now consider a session as “engaged” if it lasts 60 seconds or longer instead of the default 10 seconds. This change will affect how GA4 calculates engaged sessions and related metrics going forward.

Remember that this change will only affect new data collected after the modification. It won’t retroactively change previously collected data.

The total number of ‘Active users’ is almost always lower than the total number of ‘Total users’.

This is because usually not all users are classified as active users.

The total number of ‘Active users’ is almost always greater than the total number of ‘New users’.

This is because all new users are also considered active users, but the opposite is not true. Not all active users are new users.

Related Article: How to Calculate Active Users in GA4 BigQuery.

‘New Users’ in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

New users are those who don’t have a pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app within the specified date range.

If, in some other date range, the new users have a pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app, they can also be reported as returning users.

In other words, new users can also be reported as returning users.

Example scenario:

• A user visits your site for the first time on January 1st (counted as a new user).
• They visit again on February 1st.
• In a report for January, they are a new user.
• In a report for February, they are a returning user.
• In a report covering both months, they’re counted as both a new user and a returning user.

The classification of a user as “new” or “returning” is dependent on the date range of the report.

This dual classification means that the sum of new users and returning users can exceed the total number of users in a given date range.

GA4 fires the “first_visit” event (for websites and Android apps) or “first_open” event (for iOS apps) when it does not detect the _ga cookie.

‘Returning Users’ in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Returning users are those who have pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app within the specified date range.

If, in some other date range, the returning users do not have a pre-existing GA4 cookie (‘_ga’) on their device or app, they can also be reported as new users.

In other words, returning users can also be reported as new users depending on the date range being analyzed.

GA4 doesn’t fire a specific event exclusively for returning users. 

Returning users in GA4 BigQuery

BigQuery often reports more returning users than GA4 UI for the same period.

This happens because GA4 UI tracks returning users at the user level, counting only their first return.

In contrast, BigQuery tracks returning users at the session level, counting each session separately, leading to higher returning user counts.

For more details, check out this article: Why BigQuery Shows More Returning Users Than GA4.