Inspect network traffic with the Postman Browser Tool

With the Postman Browser Tool, you can inspect network requests made by web applications directly inside Postman. Inspecting network traffic can help you understand how an application communicates with APIs, investigate authentication flows, and debug frontend and backend issues. You can review requests as they occur, filter traffic, and open requests as HTTP requests in Postman for further exploration and testing.

With developer tools, you can inspect page content, review console output, investigate application behavior, and troubleshoot issues while interacting with a web application.

The Browser Tool is supported at the workspace level in the Postman desktop app.

Open the Postman Browser Tool

To open the Browser Tool in Postman, select Tools > Browser in the footer. The Browser Tool opens in a new tab. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + Shift + B (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + B (Windows/Linux).

Once the Browser Tool is open, navigate to the web application you want to inspect.

Inspect network traffic

As you interact with a web application, the Browser Tool records the requests made by the page. You can inspect this traffic to understand how the application communicates with APIs.

To inspect network traffic, do the following:

1. Open the Browser Tool and navigate to a web application.
2. In the right sidebar, click Network.
3. Interact with the page to generate network activity.
4. Review the requests generated by the page in the right sidebar.

You can view the method, URL, status code, and duration for each request. You can also filter requests by URL or HTTP method to focus on the traffic you’re interested in.

To clear the network activity, click Clear.

Work with requests

You can open requests in the Browser Tool as HTTP requests, enabling you to explore and work with requests observed in a web application. You can also create a collection from these requests. For example, you can modify request details, resend requests, save them to collections, add tests, and investigate API behavior outside of the browser.

To open a request, click a request in the Network tab. Postman opens a new HTTP request with the request URL, parameters, headers, and request body captured from the session.

To create a collection from requests, select the checkboxes next to the requests in the Network tab, then click Create Collection. Postman creates a new collection with HTTP requests for each of the selected requests.

Use developer tools

The Browser Tool includes developer tools for inspecting and debugging web applications.

To open the developer tools, click Tools in the Browser Tool toolbar. You can use developer tools to inspect page content, review console output, debug frontend behavior, and investigate issues while interacting with web applications.