Developer tools
Acira includes the developer tools from its Chromium engine. Use them to inspect a page, read the console, watch network requests and debug scripts.
Open developer tools
- Open the page you want to look at in a tab.
- Press F12. Or right-click the page and choose Inspect element, the last row of the menu. Or open the Acira menu, choose More tools, then Developer tools.
The tools open in their own window beside the browser, not docked inside the page. Inspect element opens them if they are closed and selects the element under the pointer. While the developer tools window has focus, the close tab and close window keys close it.
| Way to open | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Developer tools | F12, Ctrl+Shift+I, Ctrl+Shift+J | F12, Cmd+Shift+I, Cmd+Option+I, Cmd+Option+J |
| Inspect a single element | Right-click it, then Inspect element | Right-click it, then Inspect element |
| From the menu | Acira menu, More tools, Developer tools | Acira menu, More tools, Developer tools |
On a Mac, Cmd+Shift+J opens Downloads, not developer tools. See Keyboard shortcuts for every key and how to change it.
What you get
The tools are the Chromium 152 developer tools that ship with Acira's engine, so panels such as Elements, Console, Sources, Network and Application work the way they do in other Chromium browsers. Acira presents itself to sites as Chrome and applies its own privacy protections, so values you read in the console, such as navigator.userAgent, show what Acira tells the page. See Engine and web compatibility.
Other tools for working on a page
| Task | How |
|---|---|
| Reload without the cache | Reload and bypass cache: Ctrl+Shift+R, Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 (Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac) |
| Start from a clean state | Clear browsing data: Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Cmd+Shift+Delete on a Mac), or use a private tab, which keeps no cookies or cache after you close it |
| Open a local file | Open a file…: Ctrl+O (Cmd+O on a Mac), or drag the file into the window. See Localhost and certificates |
| Open a local server | Type localhost:3000 in the address bar. See Localhost and certificates |
| Load an extension you are building | See Building and testing extensions |
| Change the zoom | Ctrl+=, Ctrl+- and Ctrl+0 (Cmd on a Mac). See Reader mode, find, zoom and print |
| Save or print the page | Save page as… and Print… in the More tools menu, and Save as PDF… in the right-click menu |
| Copy the address | Copy page address: Ctrl+Shift+C (Cmd+Shift+C on a Mac). The right-click menu also has Copy clean page link when the address carries tracking parameters. |
Acira pages you can open by address
Typing these in the address bar opens Acira's own pages: acira://settings, acira://history, acira://downloads, acira://bookmarks, acira://rewind, acira://routines (the tab sets page) and acira://home. acira://new opens a new tab page.
What is not offered
- View source. There is no View page source row and no Ctrl+U. A
view-source:address does not open. Use the Elements and Sources panels, or the response in the Network panel, to read a page's source. - Browser internal pages. Addresses that start with
chrome:,about:,file:,data:,javascript:andblob:do not open from the address bar. Acira refuses them with a message. To open a local file, use Open a file…. - Extension panels. Extensions that add panels to developer tools do not show them. React Developer Tools, for example, detects a React page and opens its popup, but its Components and Profiler panels never appear.
Last updated October 31, 2026