What's New In DevTools (Chrome 61)

Published on Monday, July 10, 2017

Technically, I'm a writer

Interested in helping improve DevTools? Sign up to participate in Google User Research here.

New features and major changes coming to DevTools in Chrome 61 include:

Mobile device throttling simulation. Set CPU and network throttling simultaneously, to simulate mid-tier or low-end mobile devices.
Storage usage. View how much storage an origin is using, broken down by technology (IndexedDB, cache, local, session, etc.).
Cache timestamps. View when a service worker cached a response.
Enable the FPS Meter from the Command Menu.
Change mousewheel and trackpad behavior in the Performance panel.
Debug ES6 modules natively.

Note: You can check what version of Chrome you're running at chrome://version. Chrome auto-updates to a new major version about every 6 weeks.

Check out the video version of these release notes below or read on to learn more.

Simulate low-end and mid-tier mobile devices in Device Mode

The Device Mode Throttling menu is now exposed by default, and it now lets you simulate a low-end or mid-tier mobile device with a couple of clicks.

Figure 1. The Throttling Menu

Figure 2. Hover over the Throttling menu or open the Capture Settings menu to see the definitions for Mid-tier mobile and Low-end mobile

View storage usage

The new Usage section in the Clear Storage tab of the Application panel shows you how much storage an origin is using, as well as the maximum quota for the origin on this device.

Figure 3. The Usage section shows that https://airhorner.com is using 66.9KB out of the origin's quota of 15214MB

View when a service worker cached responses

The new Time Cached column in the Cache Storage tab shows you when a service worker cached responses.

Figure 4. The Time Cached column

Enable the FPS Meter from the Command Menu

You can now enable the FPS Meter from the Command Menu.

Figure 5. Enabling the FPS Meter from the Command Menu

Set mousewheel behavior to zoom or scroll with Performance recordings

Open Settings and set the new Flamechart mouse wheel action setting to change how mousewheels behave on the Performance panel.

For example, when you use a mousewheel on the Main section of a recording, or when you swipe with two fingers on a trackpad, the default behavior is to zoom in or out. When you change the setting to Scroll, this gesture now scrolls up or down.

Figure 6. The Flamechart mouse wheel action setting

Debugging support for ES6 Modules

ES6 Modules are shipping natively in Chrome 61. There's not much going on here with regards to DevTools, other than that debugging works as you'd expect it to. Try setting some breakpoints in and stepping through Paul Irish's ES6-Module-implementation of TodoMVC to see for yourself.

Download the preview channels

Consider using the Chrome Canary, Dev or Beta as your default development browser. These preview channels give you access to the latest DevTools features, test cutting-edge web platform APIs, and find issues on your site before your users do!

Getting in touch with the Chrome DevTools team

Use the following options to discuss the new features and changes in the post, or anything else related to DevTools.

Submit a suggestion or feedback to us via crbug.com.
Report a DevTools issue using the More options > Help > Report a DevTools issues in DevTools.
Tweet at @ChromeDevTools.
Leave comments on our What's new in DevTools YouTube videos.