Why is New Users Higher than Total Users in GA4?

Issue

Some people may encounter that it seems unreasonable that New Users is larger than Total Users, why is that?

Reason

We first need to understand how New Users and Total Users are calculated:

• New Users is to calculate the number of first_visit or first_open
• Total Users depends on the settings in “Report Identification Information”, different types will identify and count users

There are following possibilities:

• Wrongly enable first_visit or first_open, some users will start a new session when opening a web page in another tab, and will also send first_visit or first_open
• “Report identification information” enables mixing or has been listed as an observation item, and the user is identified and regarded as the same user. For example, I visit through device A for the first time, send first_vist, and then I log in to the account (User has been set User ID), in the afternoon I used device B, which is also the first time to visit, send first_visit, and also log in to the account. If the “report identification information” is enabled for mixing or has been listed as an observation item, since the account is logged in and the User ID is set, so If the same user is recognized, then the Total Users during this period is 1, and the New Users is 2.

Solution

For the first case, the incapacity is

For the second type, you can set “Report Identification Information” as the basis for the device