---
title: React DevTools
date: 2018-05-28
description: A quick demo of the browser extension you should definitely be using.
meta:
  keywords:
    - javascript
    - react
bannerCloudinaryId: unsplash/photo-1508970057347-0524a45ebdff
bannerCredit: Photo by [Aron Visuals](https://unsplash.com/photos/_l4yffWjgt4)
---

This last week I had someone criticize using React component state because:

> there are no browser dev tools for inspecting component state

Maybe this person just forgot about
[the official React DevTools browser extension](https://github.com/facebook/react-devtools),
maybe they didn't know about it. Whatever the case may be, it made me realize
that some people probably don't know about the browser extension, so I thought
I'd share it with you.

After considering it a bit, I decided that it would be easiest to share this
with you all via a quick (8 minute) video demo of the extension so here you have
it (the gif is a summary preview...)!

**[Use React DevTools](https://youtu.be/DQjMiKEwl_E):**

![gif of react devtools demo](https://res.cloudinary.com/kentcdodds-com/image/upload/v1625033241/kentcdodds.com/content/blog/react-devtools/0.gif)

Note that this video is dated and the modern DevTools are EVEN BETTER. Learn
more:

**[Watch "Install and use React DevTools" on egghead.io](https://egghead.io/lessons/react-install-and-use-react-devtools)**
(part of [The Beginner's Guide to ReactJS](https://kcd.im/beginner-react))

https://egghead.io/lessons/react-install-and-use-react-devtools

Good luck!
