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Monitoring iPhone / Android Network Traffic

Muse
4 min readApr 1, 2020

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Screen Shot of Charles running on authors computer

How to Monitor All the HTTP Calls an App on Your Phone Is Making

As a developer, there are times when I want to know exactly the calls an app is making to its various APIs.

I’ve been looking for a tool to do this for a little while and was unexpectedly introduced to a great approach from a client recently.

There are a few steps to set it up, and I didn’t find great instructions on how to do so on the web, so I’ve decided to put my own together while I go through the process of doing it.

Proxy Server

The approach we are taking is setting up a proxy server on our computer, then configuring our phone to use that proxy. This means all network traffic our phone sends will first go via our proxy, and in the proxy software we are able to view the details of all the traffic.

The proxy server I’m using in this article is Charles. I’m not affiliated with Charles in anyway, there will be other proxy server software you can choose, Charles has a cost, but a 30 day free trial too.

Step by Step

  1. First install Charles on your laptop. (You can download it here)

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Muse
Muse

Written by Muse

Muse spent his youth searching the world for meaning, and good parties. He has now settled down to the quiet life of a writer, business owner, and father of 5.

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