txAdmin playtime: how to check your players' hours on FiveM

How does FiveM record playtime?

FiveM itself does not keep a per-player hours counter you can query. The component that does is txAdmin, the management panel that ships with every modern FXServer installation. From the moment your server runs under txAdmin, it identifies each player by their identifiers (license, Discord, Steam and so on) and accumulates the time they spend connected, session after session, with no extra resource or database required. That means that if your server has been running under txAdmin for months, you already have months of playtime history recorded for every player who ever connected — most owners simply don't know where it is stored or how to read it. Frameworks like ESX or QBCore can also track hours with extra scripts, but the txAdmin record is the one you get for free, for every player, from day one.

Where does txAdmin store playtime? The playersDB.json file

txAdmin stores all player data — identifiers, display names, first and last connection, and accumulated playtime — in a single file called playersDB.json, located inside your server's txData folder. It is a plain JSON database: every player entry contains a tsJoined timestamp, a tsLastConnection timestamp and a playTime value expressed in minutes. You can open the file with any text editor and read a player's total playtime directly from it, which is the raw answer to "how do I check someone's hours". The catch is that the file is not meant for humans: on an active server it grows to thousands of entries, playtime is stored in raw minutes, and editing it with the server running is risky. It is the source of truth, but not a dashboard.

How do I get the total playtime of a player from txAdmin?

Inside the txAdmin web panel, open Players and click any player: their profile shows total play time along with first and last connection. What txAdmin does not offer today is an official API or export for that number — a feature the community has been requesting for years (there is a long-standing open issue asking exactly this). In practice you have three real options: read playersDB.json yourself (fine for a one-off check), install an open-source resource such as tdPlaytime that parses the file into MySQL so your scripts can use it (requires a database and some setup), or use a panel like FiveMonitor that reads the file directly and shows every connected player's accumulated hours live, with no database and no code. Which one is right depends on whether you need the number once, in your scripts, or in front of your staff every day.

Steps to see every player's hours in a live panel

1. Make sure you use txAdmin. If you start your server with the standard FiveM installer, you already have it. It's what accumulates each player's time.
2. Create your FiveMonitor account and install the script preconfigured with your API Key in your server's resources folder.
3. Grant FXServer read permission. FiveM blocks filesystem access by default, so you'll need to start the server with --allow-fs-read. We cover it step by step in the allow-fs-read setup guide.
4. Set the txAdmin path in the panel. On the API Key page, configure the path to your txData folder so FiveMonitor knows where to read the hours from.
5. Open the monitor. Within a few minutes you'll see each connected player's playtime, refreshing periodically.

Why does txAdmin playtime show 0?

When every player shows zero hours in an external tool, the cause is almost always the same: FXServer does not have permission to read txAdmin's file. FiveM blocks filesystem reads by default as a security measure, so any resource that needs playersDB.json — FiveMonitor included — requires the server to be started with the --allow-fs-read flag. Add the flag, restart the server process (not just a resource restart), and the hours appear. The second most common cause is a wrong path: the txData location configured in the panel must match the folder your server actually writes to, which can differ on shared hosting. Our allow-fs-read guide covers both cases step by step, including where hosting providers usually hide the txData folder.

What can you do with playtime data?

Playtime data turns impressions into decisions. Without it, running a FiveM community is guesswork: someone seems very active, a faction feels dead. With accumulated hours per player in front of you, those conversations change. You can sort your entire player base by playtime and see in seconds who sustains the server's activity and who deserves rewards or whitelist priority. You can back staff decisions with real numbers: a moderator candidate with 200 hours over two months is not the same as one with 15. And you can detect inactivity before it becomes a problem, both in team members who no longer show up and in factions that are losing steam. It is the same data txAdmin already stores, presented in a format your team can work with every day.

• Sort your players by playtime to spot who is most active in your community.
• Back staff decisions: see at a glance whether a moderator candidate actually spends time on the server.
• Detect inactivity among team members or factions.
• Combine hours with live monitoring to understand not just how much, but how your users play.

Take the next step

Tracking hours is just one part. With FiveMonitor you can also watch your players live with no impact on your server FPS. Create your account and start the 7-day free trial with no card, or check out the available plans.