Core How-Tos

Encode, decode and other utilities

The Utilities group in DevTools+ by URLflows holds the small jobs that come up every day. They all work on any tab, Chrome's own pages included, and everything is worked out in the toolbar panel; nothing is sent anywhere.

Encode and decode

Click Encode and decode. If you selected text on the page first, it starts with that; otherwise paste text, a JWT, JSON, a URL or a timestamp.
Press an operation. The result shows below with Copy, and Use as input to chain another step.

Base64: Encode, Decode.
URL: Encode, Decode, Parse (the address split into its parts).
JSON: Format, Minify, Escape as string.
JWT: Decode, with when it was issued, when it's valid from and when it expires, and whether it has expired.
HTML: Escape, Unescape.
Time: Timestamp ⇄ date, as Unix seconds, milliseconds, ISO 8601, local time and how long ago.
Hash: SHA-256, SHA-1. Generate: UUID.
Case: camelCase, PascalCase, snake_case, kebab-case, CONSTANT. Text: Count (characters, words, lines and UTF-8 bytes).

Inspect the clipboard

Clipboard inspector shows every format on the clipboard exactly as an app or a page receives it: the plain text, the HTML source, and images with their size. It notes when plain text starts or ends with spaces or line breaks. Press Copy this as plain text to put just the text back, Empty the clipboard to clear it, or the refresh button (Read it again) after you copy something new. The clipboard is read only while this view is open and never leaves the panel.

Open a page on your phone

Open on your phone draws a QR code of the page's address; point the phone's camera at it. Edit the box to encode any other address or text. Copy the address copies it, and Save the code saves the QR code as a PNG. A phone can't reach localhost: use this computer's network address (for example 192.168.1.20) and the same Wi-Fi.

Resize the window

Click Resize the window. It shows the window's size and the page's size inside it.
Leave Size the page, not the whole window on to size the area the page sees, or switch it off to size the window itself.
Pick one of the Screens (tablets, laptops, Full HD), one of the Breakpoints (width only) (Tailwind's sm, md, lg, xl and 2xl), or type an Exact size and press Apply.

Chrome keeps the window on your screen and won't make it narrower than about 500 pixels, so it says when the size isn't exact. For phone sizes, use Emulate → Device.

Open in incognito

Open in incognito opens the current page in a new incognito window, with no cookies, sign-ins or other extensions, to check whether a problem comes from your profile. If incognito is turned off in your browser, usually by a policy, it says so.

Manage extensions

Extensions lists your other extensions: the ones you're building (loaded unpacked) first, then those that are on, those that are off, and those installed by a policy, which can't be switched.
Press an extension's refresh button to reload it, or the refresh button in the header to reload every one shown that's on. Reload the page too then reloads the tab.
Switch one off to rule it out. All other extensions turns them all off at once and remembers which were on, so switching it back on restores just those. Type in Filter extensions to act on fewer.
The button at the end of a row opens that extension's details, errors and site access in Chrome.

Copy browser and system info

Browser and system info reads this browser's version, language, time zone and user agent; the operating system, processor, memory, graphics and screen; the connection; and this tab's size. Press Copy details for a bug report to paste it all as text. A browser can't see whether updates are waiting, so Updates says where to check, with Check for a Chrome update. Nothing is looked up online.