Socket.IO - how do I get a list of connected sockets/clients?

Question

In Socket.IO 0.7 you have a clients method on the namespaces, this returns a array of all connected sockets.

API for no namespace:

var clients = io.sockets.clients();
var clients = io.sockets.clients('room'); // all users from room `room`

For a namespace

var clients = io.of('/chat').clients();
var clients = io.of('/chat').clients('room'); // all users from room `room`

Hopes this helps someone in the future

NOTE: This Solution ONLY works with version prior to 1.0

---

UPDATED 2020 Mar 06

From 1.x and above, please refer to this link: getting how many people are in a chat room in socket.io

Socket.io 1.4

Object.keys(io.sockets.sockets); gives you all the connected sockets.

Socket.io 1.0 As of socket.io 1.0, the actual accepted answer isn't valid anymore. So I made a small function that I use as a temporary fix :

function findClientsSocket(roomId, namespace) {
    var res = []
    // the default namespace is "/"
    , ns = io.of(namespace ||"/");

    if (ns) {
        for (var id in ns.connected) {
            if(roomId) {
                var index = ns.connected[id].rooms.indexOf(roomId);
                if(index !== -1) {
                    res.push(ns.connected[id]);
                }
            } else {
                res.push(ns.connected[id]);
            }
        }
    }
    return res;
}

Api for No namespace becomes

// var clients = io.sockets.clients();
// becomes : 
var clients = findClientsSocket();

// var clients = io.sockets.clients('room');
// all users from room `room`
// becomes
var clients = findClientsSocket('room');

Api for a namespace becomes :

// var clients = io.of('/chat').clients();
// becomes
var clients = findClientsSocket(null, '/chat');

// var clients = io.of('/chat').clients('room');
// all users from room `room`
// becomes
var clients = findClientsSocket('room', '/chat');

Also see this related question, in which I give a function that returns the sockets for a given room.

function findClientsSocketByRoomId(roomId) {
var res = []
, room = io.sockets.adapter.rooms[roomId];
if (room) {
    for (var id in room) {
    res.push(io.sockets.adapter.nsp.connected[id]);
    }
}
return res;
}

Socket.io 0.7

API for no namespace:

var clients = io.sockets.clients();
var clients = io.sockets.clients('room'); // all users from room `room`

For a namespace

var clients = io.of('/chat').clients();
var clients = io.of('/chat').clients('room'); // all users from room `room`

Note: Since it seems the socket.io API is prone to breaking, and some solution rely on implementation details, it could be a matter of tracking the clients yourself:

var clients = [];

io.sockets.on('connect', function(client) {
    clients.push(client); 

    client.on('disconnect', function() {
        clients.splice(clients.indexOf(client), 1);
    });
});

After socket.io 1.0 we cannot use

io.sockets.clients(); 
or
io.sockets.clients('room'); 

anymore. Instead you can use the following

var clients_in_the_room = io.sockets.adapter.rooms[roomId]; 
for (var clientId in clients_in_the_room ) {
  console.log('client: %s', clientId); //Seeing is believing 
  var client_socket = io.sockets.connected[clientId];//Do whatever you want with this
}

Using Socket.IO 1.x:

Get array of the connected clients:

io.engine === io.eio // => true
Object.keys(io.engine.clients) // => [ 'US8AxrUrrDF_G7ZUAAAA', 'Ov2Ca24Olkhf2NHbAAAB' ]
Object.keys(io.eio.clients)    // => [ 'US8AxrUrrDF_G7ZUAAAA', 'Ov2Ca24Olkhf2NHbAAAB' ]

Get the number of connected clients:

io.engine.clientsCount // => 2
io.eio.clientsCount    // => 2

Very simple in socket.io 1.3:

io.sockets.sockets - is an array containing the connected socket objects. If you stored the username in each socket, you can do:

io.sockets.sockets.map(function(e) {
    return e.username;
})

Boom. You have the names of all connected users.

I've gone through this pain today. Socket.io will be much better if they could make a proper documentation for their API.

Anyway, I tried to look into io.sockets and found a number of options we can use:

io.sockets.connected //Return {socket_1_id: {}, socket_2_id: {}} . This is the most convenient one, since you can just refer to io.sockets.connected[id] then do common things like emit()
io.sockets.sockets //Returns [{socket_1}, {socket_2}, ....]. Can refer to socket_i.id to distinguish
io.sockets.adapter.sids //Return {socket_1_id: {}, socket_2_id: {}} . Looks similar to the first one but the object is not actually the socket, just the information.

// Not directly helps but still relevant
io.sockets.adapter.rooms //Returns {room_1_id: {}, room_2_id: {}}
io.sockets.server.eio.clients //Return client sockets
io.sockets.server.eio.clientsCount //Return number of connected clients

Also, do note that when using socket.io with namespace, the above methods will break since io.sockets becomes an array instead of an object. To resolve, just replace io.sockets by io (i.e io.sockets.connected becomes io.connected, io.sockets.adapter.rooms becomes io.adapter.rooms ...)

Tested on socket.io 1.3.5

Version +2.0

In version +2.0 you specify the namespace/room/node you are querying against.

As with broadcasting, the default is all clients from the default namespace ('/'):

const io = require('socket.io')();  
io.clients((error, clients) => {
      if (error) throw error;
      console.log(clients); // => [6em3d4TJP8Et9EMNAAAA, G5p55dHhGgUnLUctAAAB]
});

Gets a list of client IDs connected to specific namespace (across all nodes if applicable).

const io = require('socket.io')();
io.of('/chat').clients((error, clients) => {
     if (error) throw error;
     console.log(clients); // => [PZDoMHjiu8PYfRiKAAAF, Anw2LatarvGVVXEIAAAD]
});

An example to get all clients in namespace's room:

const io = require('socket.io')();
io.of('/chat').in('general').clients((error, clients) => {
      if (error) throw error;
      console.log(clients); // => [Anw2LatarvGVVXEIAAAD] 
});

This is from the official documentation: Socket.IO Server-API