safari iphone debug console

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How to Activate the iPhone Debug Console or Web Inspector

Use Safari's web developer tools to study problematic websites

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What to Know

• Activate Web Inspector on iOS: Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced and move the Web Inspector toggle switch to the On position.
• Use Web Inspector on macOS: Connect your iOS device to a Mac and choose the URL to inspect from the Develop menu.

If you run into a bug or another issue with a website on Safari mobile, use the Web Inspector tool to investigate. This article explains how to use the Safari console for iPhone to debug errors with the help of your Mac computer. Instructions apply to iPhones with iOS 14, iOS 12, or iOS 11, and well as Macs with macOS Big Sur (11.0), macOS Catalina (10.15), or macOS Mojave (10.14).

Activate Web Inspector on Your iPhone or Other iOS Device

The Web Inspector is disabled by default since most iPhone users have no use for it. However, if you're a developer or you're curious, you can activate it in a few short steps. Here's how:

Open the iPhone  Settings  menu.

On an iPhone with an early version of iOS, access the Debug Console through Settings > Safari > Developer > Debug Console . When Safari on the iPhone detects CSS, HTML, and JavaScript errors, details of each display in the debugger.

Scroll down and tap  Safari  to open the screen that contains everything related to the Safari web browser on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Advanced .

Move the Web Inspector toggle switch to the On position.

Connect Your iOS Device to Safari on a Mac

To use the Web Inspector, connect your iPhone or another iOS device to a Mac that has the Safari web browser and enable the Develop menu .

With Safari open, select Safari from the menu bar and choose  Preferences .

Select the  Advanced  tab.

Select the Show Develop menu in menu bar check box and close the settings window.

From the Safari menu bar, select Develop and choose the name of your attached iOS device, then select the URL that appears under Safari to open the debug console for that site.

After you connect your device, use your Mac to inspect the website you want to debug and have it open in the Safari mobile browser.

What Is Web Inspector?

Web developers use Web Inspector to modify, debug, and optimize websites on Macs and iOS devices. With Web Inspector open, developers can inspect the resources on a web page. The Web Inspector window contains editable HTML and notes regarding the styles and layers of the web page in a separate panel.

Before iOS 6, the iPhone Safari web browser had a built-in Debug Console that developers used to find web page defects. Recent versions of iOS use Web Inspector instead.

With Safari 9 and OS X Mavericks (10.9), Apple introduced Responsive Design Mode in Web Inspector. Developers use this built-in simulator to preview how web pages scale to different screen sizes, resolutions, and orientations.

To set up Web Inspector on your iPad, open your iPad's Settings and select Safari > Advanced , then turn Web Inspector On . Connect the iPad to a Mac computer, then open Safari on the Mac and select Safari > Preferences > Advanced , then turn on Show Develop menu in menu bar .

You cannot just connect your iPhone to a Windows PC and start using Web Inspector through Chrome like you can with a Mac. Installing package manager software can provide you a sort of workaround, but it's not recommended unless you're familiar with the package management app you intend to use.

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Web development tools

Apple has brought its expertise in development tools to the web. Safari includes Web Inspector, a powerful tool that makes it easy to modify, debug, and optimize websites for peak performance and compatibility on both platforms. And with Responsive Design Mode, you can preview your web pages in various screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions. Access these tools by enabling the Develop menu in Safari’s Advanced preferences.

Web Inspector

Web Inspector is your command center, giving you quick and easy access to the richest set of development tools ever included in a web browser. It helps you inspect all of the resources and activity on a web page, making development more efficient across Apple platforms. The clean, unified design puts each core function in a separate tab, which you can rearrange to fit your workflow. You can even debug memory using Timelines and tweak styles using widgets for over 150 of the most common CSS properties.

Elements. View and inspect the elements that make up the DOM of a web page. Clicking elements from the fully editable markup tree on the left reveals the node’s styles in the middle sidebar, with more details in the right sidebar.

Console. Type JavaScript commands in the console to interactively debug, modify, and get information about your webpage. View logs, errors, and warnings emitted from a webpage, so you can identify issues fast and resolve them right away.

Sources. Find every resource of a webpage, including documents, images, scripts, stylesheets, and more. Use the built-in debugger with data type and code highlights to troubleshoot and understand the script execution flow.

Network. See a detailed list of all network requests made to load every web page resource, so you can quickly evaluate the response, status, timing, and more.

Timelines. Understand all the activity that occurs on an open web page, such as network requests, layout and rendering, JavaScript events, memory, and CPU impact. Everything is neatly plotted on a timeline or recored by frame, helping you discover ways to optimize your site.

Storage. Find details about the data stored by a web page, such as application cache, cookies, databases, indexed databases, local storage, and session storage.

Graphics. Preview animation keyframes and their classes from HTML5 canvas, JavaScript animations, CSS animations, and CSS transitions. Dial in the motion and the visual design of web pages.

Layers. Visualize compositing layers in 3D to understand where layers are generated and in what order they'll render. Use layers to help find unexpected memory consumption or excessive repaints on a web page.

Audit. Preform audits against a web page to certify that common code and accessibility errors are addressed. Confirm that a web page follows design guidelines and specifications of modern web pages.

Responsive Design Mode

Safari has a powerful new interface for designing responsive web experiences. Responsive Design Mode provides a simple interface for quickly previewing your web page across various screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions, as well as custom viewports and user agents. You can drag the edges of any window to resize it. And you can click on a device to toggle its orientation, taking it from portrait to landscape — and even into Split View on iPad.