I am excited to share that my new Chrome extension, DevStorage, is officially live.
This started as a small side project. Not a startup idea. Not a big launch plan. Just a tool I built because I kept running into the same annoying workflow issue during local development.
If you have worked on modern web apps for a while, you probably know the feeling. You are testing authentication. You are toggling feature flags. You are simulating user states. And at some point, you end up deep inside Chrome DevTools trying to inspect or edit localStorage.
It works, technically. But it is not smooth.
You switch tabs. You open Application. You expand Storage. You scroll through keys. You copy and paste JSON. You clear everything when you only meant to delete one item. Then you start over.
After repeating that cycle enough times, I decided to fix it for myself. That is how DevStorage was born.
Chrome Web Store listing: DevStorage
What DevStorage does
DevStorage is a lightweight Chrome extension that makes working with localStorage faster and less frustrating.
It lets you view keys clearly, edit values quickly, remove specific entries without wiping everything, and clean up storage without digging through DevTools every time.
The goal was simple: reduce friction.
I did not want to replace DevTools. I just wanted something that feels more direct when you are in the middle of debugging and need to adjust storage quickly.
When we are building SPAs, storage becomes part of the debugging loop. Tokens live there. Feature flags live there. Temporary state lives there. Having fast access to that data saves time, especially when you are jumping between environments or testing edge cases.
Why I decided to ship it publicly
Originally, this was just a small internal helper. I built it to make my own workflow cleaner.
But after using it for a while, a teammate asked how I was managing storage so quickly. That is when I realized it might actually help other developers too.
Shipping it publicly forced me to polish things properly. Clean up the UI. Double-check permissions. Make sure performance stayed tight. Write clearer descriptions. Remove things that only made sense to me.
That process alone was valuable. It reminded me that even small tools deserve thoughtful design.
What I focused on while building it
I kept the scope intentionally narrow.
The first version does one thing well: it gives developers clean, fast control over localStorage.
I avoided adding too many features. No analytics. No cloud sync. No complicated dashboards. Just a focused interface that shows your storage clearly and lets you manage it without noise.
One thing I learned is that simplicity takes effort. My early versions had more buttons and more UI states. It looked powerful, but it felt heavy.
So I asked myself a basic question: what do I actually use every day? Anything that did not serve that answer got removed. That decision made the extension better.
What building this taught me
Even though this is a relatively small extension, it reinforced a few lessons for me.
Chrome extension architecture matters more than you think. Understanding permissions, background scripts, and storage APIs early saved me from messy refactors later.
UI clarity is harder than writing logic. The functionality worked early on. Making it intuitive took longer.
And most importantly, developer tools should feel invisible. When you click the extension icon, you should not have to think. You should just see what you need and move on.
That was the benchmark I kept testing against.
Who this is for
DevStorage is useful if you regularly work with localStorage during development.
If you debug login flows, test feature flags, simulate user states, or often need to reset specific keys without clearing everything, this will probably save you time.
If you rarely touch browser storage, you might not need it. And that is fine. I would rather build something focused that genuinely helps a specific group of developers than something broad and generic.
What is next
Now that it is live, the real work begins.
I am paying attention to feedback and watching how people actually use it. There are ideas I am considering, like adding search, supporting sessionStorage, or allowing export and import of storage snapshots.
But I do not want to guess what developers need. I would rather improve it based on real workflows.
If something feels awkward or unnecessary, that is exactly the kind of feedback I want.
Final thoughts
DevStorage started as a small fix for a daily annoyance. It turned into a public Chrome extension that I am genuinely proud of.
It solves a real problem in my workflow. That alone makes it worth building.
If you spend time debugging browser storage, give it a try. And if you are building small tools of your own, I would encourage you to ship them. You do not need a huge idea to create something useful. Sometimes removing a tiny bit of friction is enough.
If you try DevStorage, let me know what you think. I am always open to improving it.
