# What auto-capture records, and what it never records

**Category:** [Product Adoption](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/product-adoption)
**Updated:** 2026-10-04

## The short version

Auto-capture records the **structure** of what people interact with, and text only where that text is a control's own label.
### What is recorded

- Page views, including navigation inside a single-page app.
- Clicks on links, buttons and anything with a button-like role.
- For each click: the element's tag, a short list of stable attributes, its position in the page structure, and a link's destination.
- The visible label of buttons and links, capped at 50 characters.

### What is never recorded

- **Anything typed into a form field.** An input's value is never read.
- Text from ordinary page content — table cells, paragraphs, headings. This is where names, email addresses and other personal data usually live, so structure is captured there and content is not.
- Clicks on non-interactive elements.

## Making a control easy to track

Add `data-tc-id` to anything you care about:
```
<button data-tc-id="upgrade-cta">Upgrade</button>
```

When that attribute is present it is the only thing recorded for that element — no text, no structure — and it survives any redesign. If one funnel matters more than the others, this is the single change worth making.
## Events with no button behind them

Auto-capture can only see things that happen in the page. For anything else — a payment clearing, a trial expiring — call `track` yourself:
```
tcMessaging('track', 'Payment Succeeded', { plan: 'pro' });
```

Properties must be simple values: text, numbers, true/false. Nested objects are dropped rather than stored in a shape no report could read.

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## Related Articles

- [Turn on product analytics](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/product-adoption-turn-on-analytics)
- [Name a feature and get its history](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/product-adoption-features)
- [Product analytics over the API](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/product-adoption-api)
- [Reading the Analytics page](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/product-adoption-analytics-page)
- [Build a funnel](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/product-adoption-funnels)

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