Google-chrome – How to re-enable Chrome Developer Tools

google-chrome

I'm on Windows 7 running Google Chrome 41 and somehow my developer tools are disabled. Inspect Element in the context menu is grayed out, all the Developer options under the hamburger and More Tools are also grayed, and there doesn't seem to be anyway around it.

I've found this SO question but I couldn't find "disabled": true in my Preferences file. I've checked and Chrome isn't starting with the --disable-dev-tools flag either. I've wandered through the registry looking for an entry that might be causing this but so far I've found no way to re-enable devtools. I am a developer, I need them.

How can I re-enable Chrome's Developer Tools?

Best Answer

There is a key called DeveloperToolsDisabled in the Registry, See both

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome
Computer\HKEY_USERS\[USER GUID]\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome

If it's set to 1, change to 0 and restart Google Chrome.

Related Solutions

Google-chrome – Google Chrome Developer Tools not displaying

Same thing happened to me but I finaly found the files that contain the settings for the inspector. Just go to \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage and delete these two files :

chrome-devtools_devtools_0.localstorage
chrome-devtools_devtools_0.localstorage-journal

And you're done.

Windows – Chrome Developer Tools disabled

Have you tried simply pressing the 'F12' shortcut to get to the developer tools? I use the developer tools quite a lot myself, and have never encountered any issues relating to after I cleared my cache and cookies.

A case where I have had issues with Google Chrome's cookies and cache (they weren't saving) is where I had manually changed the computers AppData and User Temp directories to another drive (I did this to save space on my SSD). If this is the case with you, it can only be fixed by changing back the directories.

If this fix doesn't work, try re-installing Chrome, but use CCleaner to clear out any left-over files from Chrome's previous installation before installing Chrome again. Also, don't sign into your Google account on Chrome if you have one; your Google account saves your Chrome settings and will restore them when you sign in.