# API 'Seen' collection **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [October 10, 2026, 10:37am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781 "2026-10-10T10:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tony](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/tony/32/3086_2.png) [@Tony](https://streetart.community/u/Tony)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 10:37am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/1 "2026-10-10T10:37:13Z")
I’m a bit confused by how to get the ‘Seen’ collection for an authenticated user via the API. [Collections API · Street Art Cities developers](https://developers.streetartcities.com/collections-api/) says the Collections API is to “Read and manage the lists people save artworks to, including the artworks they’ve seen”, but an authenticated call to [https://streetartcities.com/api/collections](https://streetartcities.com/api/collections) doesn’t actually return a Seen collection, only Liked and a manually created one. [Collections API overview · Street Art Cities developers](https://developers.streetartcities.com/collections-api/overview/) notes that “The mobile app also keeps a special collection called Seen, with every artwork someone has marked as seen”, which confuses me even more. Does this mean that the API doesn’t actually provide access to Seen: that’s only tied to the mobile app? Basically I’m struggling to work out whether the documentation is right, and I _can_ actually get access to the list of artworks I’ve seen, and in which case _how_ I do that, or whether the docs are misleading, and this is an app-only thing. ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/thomas/32/810_2.png) [@thomas](https://streetart.community/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:59am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/2 "2026-10-12T10:59:43Z")
At some point in time, the mobile app would automatically add every item you marked as seen into a collection named ‘Seen’ automatically - I don’t think this is working anymore, or at least not fully. So I think the Collections API is probably not the best place to find the user’s seen items. I’ve quickly whipped up a new ‘Profiles API’ that allows you to get seens: > **[Street Art Cities for developers](https://developers.streetartcities.com/profiles-api/reference/list-what-youve-seen/)** > > Build apps on top of Street Art Cities: suggest changes to artworks and artists, and manage collections on behalf of your users. I’ve done very minimal testing, so let me know if something isn’t working as expected! ---
**Author:** ![Tony](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/tony/32/3086_2.png) [@Tony](https://streetart.community/u/Tony)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 11:50am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/3 "2026-10-12T11:50:17Z")
@thomas thanks for adding that so quickly! This seems to _mostly_ work fine, but it looks like it doesn’t include artworks I hunted. It would be very useful to be able to get those too, though I’ve no strong preference for whether those are just automatically included by default, need a flag, or are even a separate API list. Perhaps it would also be worth adding an `updatedSince` to parallel [Search markers · Street Art Cities developers](https://developers.streetartcities.com/markers-api/reference/search-markers/) as well? Without that, my code needs to refresh the entire list and short-circuit once it sees an artwork already known to have been seen; in most cases that’ll still only be a single API call anyway, but that would be a bit cleaner and more lightweight with an `updatedSince`. ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/thomas/32/810_2.png) [@thomas](https://streetart.community/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 7:56am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/4 "2026-10-13T07:56:36Z")
Good points! I’ve added hunted artworks and the `updatedSince` flag, should be live on the server and in the docs in about 15 mins! ---
**Author:** ![Tony](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/tony/32/3086_2.png) [@Tony](https://streetart.community/u/Tony)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 11:30am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/5 "2026-10-13T11:30:23Z")
Thank you! That’s working perfectly. I’ve used that to throw together a quick demo of viewing only the unseen artworks in any city where you’ve been active: [https://streetart.tonybowden.com/](https://streetart.tonybowden.com/) ---
**Author:** ![thomas](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/thomas/32/810_2.png) [@thomas](https://streetart.community/u/thomas)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2026, 7:46am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/6 "2026-10-14T07:46:58Z")
That’s awesome! It would be cool to add this type of view to the website at some point too (probably by introducing the same filters we have in the mobile app, which already allow getting to a view similar to this) ---
**Author:** ![Tony](https://streetart.community/user_avatar/streetart.community/tony/32/3086_2.png) [@Tony](https://streetart.community/u/Tony)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2026, 6:45am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/7 "2026-10-15T06:45:02Z")
Yes, the app version is very handy when I’m out and about, but having a web version is super helpful when I’m at home planning where to go next. BTW: I’ve now extended this to also have a way of displaying artwork that isn’t on SAC yet - e.g. if I’ve seen something in a news story or instagram that I need to go hunt. Currently it just pulls in from a Google Spreadsheet, rather than having its own storage, but the location of that is configurable, so it’s possible for anyone to play with it if interested (the config is via the grid icon up in the top right): ![unlisted artworks](https://d12diuuwjazlx3.cloudfront.net/original/2X/4/4ad8e5ab6fab6bfef755b96e9a892a8e6e7449f3.jpeg) Would love to hear people’s feedback if they play with it. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://d12diuuwjazlx3.cloudfront.net/original/2X/4/4a327b40053fc82c21d8a913b1a092475e0c8104.png) [@system](https://streetart.community/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2026, 6:45am UTC](https://streetart.community/t/api-seen-collection/3781/8 "2026-10-17T06:45:04Z")
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