Capture your first request

While Reqly captures, it’s your Mac’s proxy: apps send their requests through it, and Reqly shows each one. When you stop, your network settings come back as they were.

Start capturing

Do any of these:

• Click Start Capturing in the toolbar.
• Choose Capture › Start Capturing (⌘R).
• Turn on the switch in Reqly’s menu-bar item.

While Reqly captures, the toolbar button reads Capturing, with a green dot, and the status bar at the bottom says Capturing on port 9090.

Allow the helper, once

The first time you start capturing, Reqly asks you to allow its helper. The helper is a small program that changes your Mac’s proxy settings while Reqly captures, and always puts them back.

1. In the Allow Reqly to Set Your Proxy sheet, click Open System Settings.
2. In General › Login Items & Extensions, turn on Reqly under Allow in the Background.

Capturing starts as soon as you allow it.

Your settings always come back

The helper changes only the HTTP and HTTPS proxy of your Mac’s network services. It puts them back when you stop capturing, when you quit Reqly, and even if Reqly quits unexpectedly. If your Mac shuts down while Reqly captures, the helper puts them back when the Mac starts up again.

Watch requests come in

Open an app or a web page, and its requests appear in the list, each with the app that sent it. HTTPS requests show as Encrypted connection until you decrypt their host. See Decrypt HTTPS.

Select a request to see its headers, body and timing. See The request list and details.

Stop capturing

Click Capturing in the toolbar, or press ⌘R again. Reqly puts your proxy settings back.

The requests stay in the list until you clear them with Capture › Clear Traffic (⌘K), or quit Reqly. Quitting deletes them, unless you save them as a session.

Start capturing when Reqly opens

Open Reqly › Settings…, and in General, turn on Start capturing when Reqly opens.

Apps that don’t use the Mac’s proxy

Most apps use your Mac’s proxy settings, but some command-line tools and apps with networking of their own don’t. Point them at Reqly yourself, at 127.0.0.1 and Reqly’s port. For example:

curl -x 127.0.0.1:9090 http://example.com

For an app that can’t use a proxy at all, use a reverse proxy.