Browser Preview

The browser preview opens a web page inside a session. Its main use is checking a web app on your server that isn’t exposed publicly: forward its port with local port forwarding, then open http://localhost:<port> in the preview.

The preview is available on iOS, Android and macOS. Windows and Linux show a note to open the URL in your system browser instead.

Opening a preview

1. In an open session, tap Session settings (the sliders icon in the breadcrumb bar).
2. Tap Add Browser.
3. Enter a URL and confirm. The field is pre-filled with http://localhost:<port> for your first active local port forward. A URL without a scheme gets https://.

With PocketCmd Pro the preview opens as a pane in the current session, next to your terminal. On Free it opens as its own session; the preview itself is not limited.

Preview panes are temporary. They aren’t saved as servers and don’t come back after the app restarts.

Previewing a web app on your server

1. Add a local forward on the server, for example local port 8080 to localhost:3000 on the server.
2. Connect to the server so the forward is active.
3. Add a browser preview. http://localhost:8080 is suggested for you.

If the page can’t load (for example because the tunnel is down), the preview shows Couldn’t load this page with the URL, the error and Retry.

Using the preview

With the preview pane focused, Session settings offers Edit URL and Refresh. Back goes back in the page’s own history before it leaves the pane.

The page stays loaded when you switch to another session or screen, and the preview remembers its current URL.

Security settings

The preview runs in the platform’s web engine (WKWebView on iOS and macOS, Android System WebView on Android) with these restrictions:

• HTTPS pages can’t load HTTP content.
• Pages can’t open new windows on their own.
• file:// pages can’t read other origins.
• Remote inspection with Safari Web Inspector or chrome://inspect is turned off in release builds.