Data Layers Inspector guide

Chrome 140 or later.

Start a recording

1. Open the HTTPS site and click the extension's toolbar icon.
2. Read the disclosure in the side panel. Press Allow and start recording, then approve Chrome's site permission prompt.
3. The tab reloads. Recording applies to this tab and its permitted frames. Other tabs stay stopped until you start them.
4. Select a page and frame. Expand a record to inspect its payload. Config and Get IDs, send_to targets and container IDs appear as badges.

Inspect queues and objects

The default array is window.dataLayer. Open Settings to add another global name such as uetq, utag_data or your own layer. Names are direct window properties, not dotted paths. Host objects such as location and browser storage are refused.

Arrays are polled for pushed items. Configured objects create an initial snapshot, then records headed by their changed keys. Polling cannot observe changes made and undone between reads, or distinguish identical repeated pushes in some fixed-length queues. If an object is partly unread, changes outside the read window cannot be detected. Two personal values that mask to the same text can also look unchanged; use raw mode deliberately when inspecting those changes.

Pause, search and grouping

Pause freezes the displayed records while recording continues. New and dropped counts remain visible. Grouping changes made while paused take effect on Resume. Search looks in titles and payloads; the page and frame selectors show matches elsewhere. Events, Consent, Config and Lifecycle filters use the raw command or event type.

Reload refreshes the tab's current page, even if you selected a historical page. It resumes a paused view so the new document is shown.

Masking and raw mode

Known personal keys, user_data and address subtrees, and email patterns are masked before storage. Query strings, URL fragments and common path tokens are removed from page labels. Unrecognized personal data may remain.

Show raw personal values is an explicit opt-in for this recording. Turning it off affects new entries; earlier raw entries remain in history. Every Start resets raw mode to off. Personal values may appear in Copy and Export when raw mode was used.

Missing data and retention

Incomplete entries show notes at the affected location. Depth limits, long strings, unreadable values, object or array budgets and the line limit can cause cuts. Export includes the cut metadata. A Copy operation announces when its selected data may be incomplete.

Each frame retains at most 500 entries, shared by its queues and snapshots. An approximately 8 MB storage budget is shared across tabs and frames. Old entries are trimmed; small Container Loaded summaries are retained within the budget. Entries can also be lost while waiting for the extension or prerender activation, or when their old document can no longer be matched to a page.

Writes are coalesced. Sustained traffic schedules a write within 1000 ms of the first pending change, plus queue and storage time. Records not yet written can be lost if the worker or browser stops unexpectedly. This is a debugging log, not a durable audit trail.

Copy and Export

Copy JSON copies an entry; Copy copies a field. Export downloads the selected page and frame's retained log, regardless of the current search and filter. It includes dropped counts, summaries and cut notes. It does not include the full page URL. Downloaded files are not encrypted or automatically deleted by the extension.

Stop, revoke and delete

Stop ends collection but preserves the log until the tab or browser closes. Use Revoke site access or Chrome's extension settings to remove the grant and delete that site's retained pages and frames across tabs. If cleanup cannot finish, the panel warns and retries. Export files remain on your computer. Removing the extension deletes its settings.

Shopify and other frames

Same-site sandboxes with HTTPS frame URLs are included. about:blank, blob: and data: frame URLs are not collected. A frame on another HTTPS origin needs its own site grant; a checkout card frame on an ungranted domain is excluded. A pixel name is read only from the matching parent's initialize message; customer initialization data is not read for that feature. Page uncertain means a record's page assignment could not be established conclusively.

Troubleshooting

If nothing appears, check that this tab is recording, the frame's origin is granted and the variable exists in that frame. After adding a site grant, Start reloads the page. Chrome internal pages and HTTP sites are unsupported. After reloading the extension itself, reopen the side panel.

Questions: [email protected]. Share only a sanitized reproduction; the publisher cannot see your local log.