Logs

The Logs page (sidebar → Logs) shows entries emitted by the app for debugging and support. Entries are filtered by your global log level and any per-component overrides, and a copy is also written to a persistent file on disk so logs survive app restarts.

Where the file lives

The file is named zmninja-ng.log and lives in the per-app log directory chosen by the OS:

Platform	Path
macOS (Electron)	`~/Library/Logs/com.zoneminder.zmNinjaNG/zmninja-ng.log`
Windows (Electron)	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\com.zoneminder.zmNinjaNG\logs\zmninja-ng.log`
Linux (Electron)	`~/.local/share/com.zoneminder.zmNinjaNG/logs/zmninja-ng.log`
iOS	App sandbox (`Application Support` directory). Not directly accessible via Files app, use Share to extract it.
Android	App-private data directory (`/data/data/com.zoneminder.zmNinjaNG/`). Not browsable without root, use Share.
Web (browser dev only)	No persistence.

Buttons on the Logs page

Share (iOS / Android): sends the .log file via the system share sheet. Pick AirDrop, email, Slack, etc., the recipient gets a real file attachment.
Open (Desktop): reveals zmninja-ng.log in Finder, Explorer, or your file manager.
Share (Web, dev only): falls back to a one-shot text download.
Clear: prompts for confirmation, then zeros the file and clears the in-memory buffer.

A status line below the action row shows the current entry count (e.g. 4,237 of 10,000 entries). On desktop it also shows the absolute path. On mobile the path is a sandboxed URI you can’t navigate to anyway, so it’s omitted.

Format and retention

The file is NDJSON: one JSON object per line. Plain-text rendering happens on Share, so the file you send to support is human-readable.
Capped at 10,000 entries. When the cap is hit, the oldest half is dropped automatically.
Lines that fail to parse (e.g. from a crash mid-write) are skipped silently when the file is read back.

Filtering and log levels

The on-disk file mirrors the in-memory Logs view, so anything filtered out by your level / component settings is not persisted either. To configure:

Global level and per-component overrides: Settings → Advanced → Component Logs (collapsible section). The global level sets the floor; per-component selectors override it for individual loggers.
The Logs page itself only filters which entries are displayed. The component multi-select at the top of the page narrows the visible entries; it does not change the level being recorded.

Lowering the level (e.g. to DEBUG for a specific component) writes more to disk; raising it writes less.

Live console output

The Logs page mirrors what the in-app console shows. If you want to watch raw console output as it streams (including stack traces and source-mapped errors that don’t make it into the structured logger), open the developer console, see How do I open the developer console on the desktop app? in the FAQ.