Safari DevTools Tips

Copy CSS selector of an element Screenshot of Edge DevTools, showing how to access the Copy CSS selector option

Sometimes we need to uniquely identify an element that lacks an identifier, so that it can be refere... Read more

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css

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Edit an element's attributes and tag name with the keyboard GIF animation of a part of the Inspector panel in Firefox, showing how pressing Enter on a focused element goes into edit mode and how Tab allows to navigate from field to field

GIF animation of a part of the Inspector panel in Firefox, showing how pressing Enter on a focused element goes into edit mode and how Tab allows to navigate from field to field

Using the keyboard can be faster than using a mouse in certain cases (and for some people). One such... Read more

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Discover all the tools The list of most tools in Edge DevTools, just to illustrate how many there are

DevTools is confusing! There's so much functionality packed in such a small UI. Did you know that Ch... Read more

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help

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Use document.designMode to spell check your webpage

https://twitter.com/AmeliasBrain/status/1521146127327801345... Read more

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Visualize and debug CSS cascade layers Screenshot of Firefox, with a demo page that uses layers and devtools opened, showing the Rules panel with 2 @layer rules

Screenshot of Firefox, with a demo page that uses layers and devtools opened, showing the Rules panel with 2 @layer rules

CSS cascade layers is a CSS feature that allows web developers to define their CSS styles in multipl... Read more

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css

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Quickly reference nodes, expressions, and react components in the console

https://twitter.com/ChatterboxDev/status/1506299424712142864 Also learn more about getting the selec... Read more

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Start your HTML and CSS prototypes in the browser directly Screenshot of Edge , with a tab opened on the HTML data-url, and DevTools opened showing the Elements and Sources panels with local changes made

Screenshot of Edge , with a tab opened on the HTML data-url, and DevTools opened showing the Elements and Sources panels with local changes made

Sometimes I need a blank canvas to prototype an idea with HTML and CSS. Something outside of the web... Read more

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Debug popups that appear on hover using the debugger statement

In Debug popups that appear on hover using JS we described how to pause the debugger to inspect popu... Read more

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debug

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console.log() is great, but do you know console.table()? console.group()? console.assert()?

https://twitter.com/nghuuphuoc/status/1505892172700299268... Read more

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console

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Send feedback, ask for features and report bugs A feedback illustration showing a stick figure with a speech bubble

Browser vendors depend on your feedback to build the right tools for you. Without hearing from you... Read more

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help

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Paste multiple CSS declarations at once GIF animation showing how pasting several declarations in a CSS rule in DevTools creates them all

You know how you can paste a CSS property name or value in the Styles (or Rules) panel? Well, you ca... Read more

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css

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Query object instances and holders from the console Screenshot of the console in Safari, showing the result of queryInstances(app.TodoItem)

All browser DevTools have a few built-in functions in the console to do things like get the current... Read more

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safari

Write code on multiple lines in the Console Screenshot showing the button to switch the Firefox console to the multi-line mode

If you're feeling adventurous and want to write longer pieces of code in the Console to execute more... Read more

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console

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Download all images from the page Screenshot of the Snippets panel in Edge, with the JS code from above, and the download panel open showing all images have been downloaded

Screenshot of the Snippets panel in Edge, with the JS code from above, and the download panel open showing all images have been downloaded

If you want to download all of the images on a webpage in one go, you can use the following few line... Read more

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productivity

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Automatically logging name and value in console.log() Screencast showing the different ways the variables are logged with and without curly braces

Screencast showing the different ways the variables are logged with and without curly braces

Using the console of DevTools you can to log some information to debug your JavaScript. The common w... Read more

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Move panels to re-arrange them GIF animation in Edge DevTools showing the move to top/bottom menus

Moving panels around the user interface can be very useful to make DevTools more unique to you and a... Read more

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personalization

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Format console messages Screenshot of a formatted console message in Edge

You can use special formatters in the console.log function to format logs just the way you want. Us... Read more

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console

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Simulate pseudo CSS classes Screenshot of the :hov panel to simulate various pseudo-classes

If you use :hover, :active, and other such pseudo-classes in CSS, you can actually simulate these st... Read more

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Zoom the DevTools UI to your liking Gif demo showing the UI of Chrome DevTools being zoomed in and out

Do you find the UI of DevTools too small to comfortably work with? Because this UI is made of HTML a... Read more

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See the page in 3D Screenshot of the 3D view tool showing a page's z-index stacking tree as a 3d scene

See your page in 3 dimensions to quickly find out how deeply nested it is, fix z-index stacking issu... Read more

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Easily change CSS number values from the keyboard in increments of 0.1, 1, 10, 100 GIF animation of the Styles panel in Edge showing how numbers can be changed in various increments

GIF animation of the Styles panel in Edge showing how numbers can be changed in various increments

When playing with styling or layout code in DevTools, it's useful to be able to change widths, margi... Read more

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css

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Find and export CSS changes Screenshot of the Changes panel in Firefox showing a diff-like view of all the CSS changes

If you spent time changing CSS in DevTools, either in the Rules panel (in Firefox), or in the Source... Read more

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Evaluate XPath to find elements in the page Screenshot of the Inspector panel in Firefox showing the search field with an XPath expression

DevTools supports 2 ways to evaluate XPath expressions to help you locate elements in the page. All... Read more

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Store a node as a variable to use it in the console screenshot of firefox's "use in console" context menu option in the Inspector, and also showing the Console with a couple of tempN variables

screenshot of firefox's "use in console" context menu option in the Inspector, and also showing the Console with a couple of tempN variables

If you want to use a DOM node from the page in the console: Right-click the node in the Elements (o... Read more

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Console.log() for the web with logpoints Screenshots of the way to set a logpoint in the sources tool

Using the console to log some information is a very common way to debug your JavaScript. But you can... Read more

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Debug popups that appear on hover using JS GIF showing how to pause the debugger with F8 while a tooltip is visible to then style it in the Inspector panel of Firefox

GIF showing how to pause the debugger with F8 while a tooltip is visible to then style it in the Inspector panel of Firefox

Have you ever been frustrated because you couldn't style a popup or tooltip that appeared on hover?... Read more

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debug

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Pause script execution when the DOM changes Screenshot of the Elements panel in Edge showing the "Break on" contextual menu on the selected node

If you want to know what JavaScript code removes, adds, or modifies a DOM element in the page, you c... Read more

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Change the color theme of DevTools Screenshot of the settings panel in Edge showing the Theme drop-down

Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have a light and dark theme for their DevTools. Edge not only has tho... Read more

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personalization

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Play a sound when a line of JavaScript is executed GIF animation showing how to add the audio breakpoint in Safari Web Inspector

Sometimes pausing execution when a line of JavaScript is executed is too much, sometimes you only wa... Read more

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safari

Prototype content changes with designMode Animated GIF of editable web page with designMode on

When creating or modifying a design prototype for the web, you may want to quickly edit content in t... Read more

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Copy an element's XPath expression Screenshot of the Elements panel in Edge showing the copy xpath option in the contextual menu

You can easily copy an element's XPath expression from DevTools. This is useful if you need this exp... Read more

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Find DevTools reference documentation Screenshot of the 4 documentation websites listed above

If you want to learn more about what other tools exist in a browser, or what features a given tool p... Read more

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help

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Drag and drop nodes in the DOM tree Gif animation showing a node being dragged by the mouse in the DOM tree view of the Elements panel in Edge

If you need to move nodes or elements around in the DOM tree, to re-order things in the page, you ca... Read more

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html

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Event listeners are suppressed when paused Screenshot of a page in edge with the DevTools Sources paused at a location, and the on-page overlay preventing access to the page

Screenshot of a page in edge with the DevTools Sources paused at a location, and the on-page overlay preventing access to the page

This is not really a tip, but rather an interesting thing to be aware of when debugging JavaScript.... Read more

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javascript

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Apply CSS styles to console messages Screenshot of a styled console message in Edge

The console.log output can be styled in DevTools using CSS. console.log('%c Hello World', 'color: or... Read more

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Find all images without alternative text The output of the console.table command from above shown in the Firefox DevTools console

With HTML, you can add alternative text to images using the alt attribute. It can be used to add a t... Read more

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Draw a box around all elements to debug your CSS and page structure Gif animation showing how adding the rule in the styles pane if chrome devtools outlines all elements in the page

Gif animation showing how adding the rule in the styles pane if chrome devtools outlines all elements in the page

Simple, yet powerful, * { outline: 1px solid red; } is a useful debugging trick that helps understan... Read more

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Find DOM elements from the console Firefox's console panel, showing 3 different examples of using the $ and $$ built-in console functions

$ and $$ are 2 functions you can use in the console to find elements in the page. They are essential... Read more

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Persist console messages across page navigations and reloads Screenshot of Edge devtools' console showing the settings panel at the top, with the "perserve log" box checked

Screenshot of Edge devtools' console showing the settings panel at the top, with the "perserve log" box checked

By default, the messages displayed in the console get removed as soon as you refresh the page (or na... Read more

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console

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Copy an object from the console Screenshot of Chrome devtools' console with a line of code using the copy() function

The console panel supports a very handy copy() function that stringifies and copies anything you pas... Read more

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Get the selected element in the console screenshot of safari's console showing how the $0 shortcut returns the selected elemet

If you selected an element in the Elements panel (in Chrome, Safari or Edge) or the Inspector panel... Read more

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View performance markers in order Screenshot of the console in Edge showing the PerformanceTiming object, with alphabetical properties, and then using console.table to sort properties

Screenshot of the console in Edge showing the PerformanceTiming object, with alphabetical properties, and then using console.table to sort properties

When logging performance.timing events to the console, they appear in alphabetical order since they... Read more

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Unminify JavaScript code to easily read and debug it Screenshot of the Sources panel in Chrome, showing the pretty-print button

Sometimes, the JavaScript code that runs on a website is minified and really hard to read. This is c... Read more

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Highlight all the elements that a CSS rule matches GIF animation showing how hovering over selectors in chrome highlights the matching elements in the page

GIF animation showing how hovering over selectors in chrome highlights the matching elements in the page

When you want to know which elements a given CSS rule will apply to, in addition to the currently se... Read more

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Expand DOM nodes recursively

GIF animation showing right-clicking on a node in Chrome's Elements panel and choosing "expand recursively"

You can expand all descendants under a given DOM node in one go, to avoid having to expand each node... Read more

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Use the debugger statement to pause script execution Screenshot of the Sources panel in Edge, paused at a debugger statement

If you prefer to use console.log() statements rather than the JavaScript debugger because you find i... Read more

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46 Safari DevTools Tips