Almost all the websites on the internet use sessions to track logged-in users. Sessions allow us to identify a user when he/she takes some action on the website. For example, when a user clicks on the checkout button, the backend of the website will detect the session and charges the same user. It never goes wrong because the session data can be used to precisely identify a user.
Now, a session has a lifetime. It comes with an expiry date. And, this expiry date or a session lifetime changes with the different type of websites. For example, it is good to keep the session lifetime shorter when it comes to a website that handles the user transaction. However, if you are running a game website, you can keep the session expiry longer. Similarly, sessions in a blog or eCommerce store come with an expiry.
However, if you are using Joomla, you can update the session lifetime directly from the admin panel. In this short tutorial, I am going to show you How.
Change Session Lifetime in Joomla
To change a session lifetime, log in to the admin panel of your Joomla site and click on the System -> Global configuration option from the main menu. It will redirect you to a page where you can update all the vital settings of your site.
A global configuration page contains multiple tabs. The session expiry option is available in the System tab. So, click on the System tab.
Under the Server tab, find a section with heading Session Settings. In that section, you will find two fields to update Session lifetime and Session handler. Let’s see what is a session lifetime and a session handler.
- Session Lifetime: Session lifetime is a numeric value and it represents How long a session is. To keep a user logged in for longer time, increase this value.
- Session Handler: Session handler is a drop-down menu with specific values. It won’t make a difference if you will change this value. It represents the storage of all the sessions. By default, it is Database. It means that Joomla will store all the sessions in a database.
After updating the Session lifetime in an input field, click on the Save button given at the top-left corner of the page. See the following screenshot for reference.
So, this is how you can update the session lifetime in Joomla. Joomla makes it easier for us to change these types of settings.