How to Check User online or not in Laravel?

This is post describes how to check user online or not in Laravel without storing any token in the database. we check user online or not based on recent activity using middleware.

Some developers use a token to store in the users’ table when the user login and deletes token when the user logs out but what happens when the user, not logs out but closes the tab or maybe not on PC or system.

Here use a proper method to use know user online or not we also seta time duration if the user does not do any activity duration set time. so let’s start

Step:1 Create a new project

If you work on an existing project you can skip this process.

Create a new Laravel project using this command.

laravel new userOnline

Step:2 Setup database and migrate table

In the second step we setup database connection in the .env  file than migrate table using this command.

php artisan migrate

After that fill some dummy data in the user table to check users online or not in Laravel.

Step: 3 create a middleware 

Create a middleware LastUserActivity using this command.

php artisan make:middleware LastUserActivity

Add some code check user online or not 

App\Http\Middleware\LastUserActivity .php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Auth;
use Cache;
use Carbon\Carbon;
class LastUserActivity
{
    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure  $next
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        if(Auth::check()) {
            $expiresAt = Carbon::now()->addMinutes(1);
            Cache::put('user-is-online-' . Auth::user()->id, true, $expiresAt);
        }
        return $next($request);
    }
}

Step: 4 Add a class into Kernel

Add a class into Kernal file in middlewareGroups

\App\Http\Middleware\LastUserActivity::class,

full code of $middlewareGroups

protected $middlewareGroups = [
        'web' => [
            \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,
            \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
            \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
            \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
            \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
            \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,

             \App\Http\Middleware\LastUserActivity::class,
        ],

        'api' => [
            'throttle:60,1',
            'bindings',
        ],
    ];

Step: 5 Add a function into the User Model

public function isOnline()
{
    return Cache::has('user-is-online-' . $this->id);
}

Ok, We almost are done now time to check.

Don’t forget to add use Cache in User Model At the top;

use Cache;

Step: 6 Check user Online or offline in Laravel application

Use the isOnline function in view.

@if($user->isOnline())
    user is online!!
@endif