For many web developers, Browser DevTools are an essential part of their daily toolkit. Whether it’s Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari, these tools provide powerful capabilities to inspect, debug, and optimise web pages. However, most people only scratch the surface of what these tools can do. Beyond the familiar Console tab and Element inspector lie a host of lesser-known features that can dramatically improve your workflow and give you deeper insights into how websites behave.
We explore some of the hidden gems in Browser DevTools that you might not have encountered before, but which could make a real difference in how you work.
Most developers are familiar with the top-level tabs in DevTools, but far fewer take advantage of the Command Menu. This powerful feature is accessible in Chrome and Edge by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P (or Cmd + Shift + P on Mac).
Think of it like Spotlight for DevTools. It allows you to quickly run commands like disabling JavaScript, emulating different devices, showing rulers, taking screenshots, or switching between panels. You can even filter by panel and see what commands are available specifically in that context.
If you’re tired of clicking through menus or trying to remember where a setting is, the Command Menu is a great shortcut to hidden and advanced functionality.
Hidden in Chrome’s experimental features is the CSS Overview panel, a tool that helps visualise and audit the CSS of a web page. To enable it:
This panel gives you a breakdown of colour usage, font styles, unused declarations, and media queries. It’s especially helpful when working on larger projects or when refactoring legacy CSS. You can quickly see inconsistencies or bloat in your styles, making it a handy tool for both designers and developers.
Testing your site on a high-end desktop with fibre broadband doesn’t always reflect the experience of your users. Fortunately, DevTools lets you simulate slower conditions.
In the “Network” tab, look for the “Throttling” dropdown. You can simulate conditions like “Fast 3G” or “Slow 3G” to test how your site performs under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Under the “Performance” tab, you can also throttle the CPU. This is particularly useful for seeing how JavaScript-heavy pages behave on lower-end devices. Simulating slower CPUs can help identify expensive rendering tasks or poor performance caused by long tasks and excessive scripting.
Chrome has introduced a Recorder panel (available from version 97 onward), allowing you to record a sequence of user interactions on your site. This includes clicks, navigation, and form entries.
Once recorded, you can replay the flow to test regressions or performance issues. You can even export the flow as a Puppeteer script for use in automated testing.
This is extremely useful for QA workflows, testing critical paths, or analysing the performance of multi-step processes such as checkouts, form submissions, or navigation through complex UIs.
Ever wish you could tweak a file in DevTools and have your changes persist across reloads? With the Overrides feature, you can.
Here’s how to set it up in Chrome:
This is a fantastic way to test CSS or JavaScript changes locally without needing to re-upload assets or set up local servers. It’s especially useful when working with third-party sites or staging environments.
Accessibility is a critical consideration in modern web development. Chrome DevTools allows you to emulate various types of vision deficiencies so you can see how your site might appear to users with colour blindness or blurred vision.
To try it out:
This feature makes it easier to build inclusive websites and understand the importance of good colour contrast and visual clarity.
Modern web apps increasingly rely on Web Workers and Service Workers to handle background tasks and offline experiences. But debugging them can be tricky if you don’t know where to look.
In Chrome, head to the “Application” tab. You’ll find Service Workers listed under the relevant section. Here, you can:
For Web Workers, go to the “Sources” tab and look under “Threads” in the left sidebar. You can inspect, pause, and step through code running inside Web Workers, just like regular scripts.
Working with animations? The “Animations” panel lets you pause, slow down, and inspect CSS animations and transitions in depth.
To access it:
Ctrl + Shift + P and type “Show Animations”.This panel shows a timeline of animations, allowing you to scrub back and forth, change playback speed, or replay animations to fine-tune timing and easing functions.
It’s an excellent tool for debugging transitions, improving user experience, and ensuring animations perform smoothly.
Live expressions are a handy way to monitor the value of a variable in real-time as your page runs. They’re especially useful for watching state changes, debugging UI interactions, or tracking performance metrics.
To use them:
window.scrollY or document.querySelector('#cart-count').textContent.The value will update live as the page changes. No need to keep typing or running commands manually – a great timesaver when debugging dynamic behaviours.
To see what parts of the page are re-rendering during interaction, enable paint flashing:
Now, whenever a part of the screen is repainted, it will flash green. This helps identify unnecessary reflows or repaints that could be causing performance issues. Combine it with performance profiling for even deeper insight.
Browser DevTools are much more than just a way to poke around the DOM or log messages in the console. They are a full suite of performance, accessibility, debugging, and analysis tools — many of which are hidden just beneath the surface.
Taking time to explore these lesser-known features can greatly enhance your productivity and help you build faster, more resilient websites. Whether you’re a front-end developer, designer, tester, or curious techie, there’s always something new to discover inside DevTools.
The next time you open your browser’s developer tools, try diving a little deeper. You might just find a hidden feature that changes the way you work forever.
