Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information).
Recent Developments
For discussion on the latest changes to Charles, please see Karl’s blog.
- 24 Jan 2024
Charles 5 public beta 13 is now available for testing, featuring more UI improvements particularly on Windows including dark mode support. Read more.
- 7 Jul 2023
Charles 5 public beta 11 is now available for testing, featuring more UI improvements, performance improvements, new features and bug fixes. Read more.
- 11 Jun 2023
Charles 5 public beta 9 is now available for testing, featuring more UI improvements and bug fixes. Read more.
- 11 Apr 2023
Charles 5 public beta is now available for testing, featuring major UI improvements and technology upgrades. Read more.
- 4 Apr 2023
Charles 4.6.4 released with macOS crash fixed and Windows code signing updated. Read more.
- 26 Sep 2022
Charles 4.6.3 released with minor bug fixes and Java 11 update Read more.
- 14 Dec 2021
In light of the current log4j2 vulnerabilities, we confirm that no version of Charles shipped or used any version of log4j and Charles is therefore thankfully unaffected by this issue. Our best wishes to the log4j developers and everyone affected by this.
- 6 Jul 2021
Charles 4.6.2 released including bug fixes. Read more.
- 15 Nov 2020
Charles 4.6.1 released to fix Dark Mode support on macOS Read more.
- 7 Nov 2020
Charles 4.6 released including new features and stability improvements. Read more.
- 15 Jan 2020
Charles 4.5.6 released with minor bug fixes and patched security vulnerability. Read more.
- 5 Dec 2019
Charles 4.5.5 released including bug fixes for SSL certificate imports. Read more.
- 3 Nov 2019
Charles 4.5.2 released including new features, bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 28 Feb 2019
Charles 4.2.8 released with minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 14 Sep 2018
Charles 4.2.7 released with minor bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 5 May 2018
Charles Security Bulletin for a local privilege escalation in Charles 4.2 and 3.12.1 and earlier. Read more.
- 7 Apr 2018
Charles 4.2.5 released with major bug fixes and minor improvements. Read more.
- 28 Mar 2018
Charles for iOS released. Read more.
- 22 Nov 2017
Charles 4.2.1 released with important bug fixes. Read more.
- 30 Sep 2017
Charles 4.2 released with major new TLS debugging capability, minor improvements and bug fixes including macOS High Sierra support. Read more.
- 10 Jul 2017
Charles 4.1.4 released with minor improvements and bug fixes. Read more.
- 20 Jun 2017
Charles 4.1.3 released including Brotli compression support and other minor bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 13 May 2017
Charles 4.1.2 released with bug fixes and minor improvements. Read more.
- 21 Apr 2017
Charles 4.1.1 released with bug fixes. Read more.
- 10 Apr 2017
Charles 4.1 released including major new features and bug fixes. Read more.
- 19 Nov 2016
Charles 4.0.2 released including bug fixes and minor improvements. Read more.
- 20 Sep 2016
Charles 4.0.1 released including bug fixes. Read more.
- 16 Sep 2016
Charles 3.11.6 released with support for macOS Sierra and minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 1 Aug 2016
Charles 4 released featuring HTTP 2, IPv6 and improved look and feel. Read more.
- 29 May 2016
Charles 3.11.5 released including minor bug fixes; especially fixes SSL certificate installation on Android. Read more.
- 29 Feb 2016
Charles 3.11.4 released with support for ATS on iOS 9 and crash fixes for older versions of Mac OS X. Read more.
- 15 Feb 2016
Charles v3.11.3 released including bug fixes and minor improvements. Read more.
- 9 Nov 2015
Charles v3.11.2 released with SSL and Websockets improvements. Read more.
- 4 Oct 2015
Charles 3.11 released including major new features. Read more.
- 7 Jul 2015
Charles 3.10.2 released with bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 31 Mar 2015
Charles 3.10.1 released with minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 21 Mar 2015
Charles 3.10 released with improved SSL (new SSL CA certificate install required), major new features and improvements. Read more.
- 22 Oct 2014
Charles v3.9.3 released with improvements to SSL support, Mac OS X Yosemite support and other minor bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 26 May 2014
Charles v3.9.2 released with minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 5 May 2014
Charles 3.9.1 released with minor bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 25 Apr 2014
Charles 3.9 released with major new features and bug fixes, including the ability to "focus" on hosts so they are separated from the noise. Read more.
- 23 Oct 2013
Charles 3.8.3 released with support for Mac OS X Mavericks and minor bug fixes. Happy Mavericks Day. Read more.
- 21 Oct 2013
Charles 3.8.2 released with minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 9 Sep 2013
Charles 3.8.1 released with minor bug fixes and improvements. Read more.
- 4 Sep 2013
Charles 3.8 has been released with new features and bug fixes. Read more.
- 12 Feb 2013
Charles 3.7 has been released. Includes new features, bundled Java runtime (so you don’t need to install Java anymore), and bug fixes. Read more.
- 27 Jun 2012
Charles 3.7 beta 2 has been released. This changes the SSL signing for Charles on Mac OS X to use Apple's new Developer ID code-signing. Read more.
- 8 Dec 2011
Charles v3.6.5 released including bug fixes and minor changes. Read more.
- 15 Nov 2011
Charles v3.6.4 released including major bug fixes and enhancements. Read more.
- 5 Sep 2011
Charles v3.6.3 released including minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 24 Aug 2011
Charles v3.6.1 released including minor enhancements and bug fixes. Read more.
- 18 Aug 2011
Charles v3.6 released including new features, enhancements and bug fixes. New features include HAR and SAZ file import. Read more.
- 17 Aug 2010
Charles v3.5.2 released including bug fixes and minor new features. Read more.
- 1 Jan 2010
Charles 3.5.1 released. Minor bug fixes. Read more.
- 23 Dec 2009
Charles 3.5 released. Major new features, bug fixes and enhancements.
- 17 Oct 2009
Charles 3.4.1 released. Minor features and bug fixes.
- 27 Sep 2009
Charles 3.4 released. Major changes especially to SSL.
- 11 May 2009
New website launched. Follow @charlesproxy on Twitter. Say hi in San Francisco when I'm there for WWDC!
- 7 Mar 2009
Charles 3.3.1 released. Minor new features and bug fixes. Experimental 64 bit Windows support. Read more.
- 15 Feb 2009
Charles 3.3 released. Major new features. Download
- 24 Sep 2008
Charles Autoconfiguration add-on for Mozilla Firefox adds support for Firefox 3.1
- 23 Sep 2008
Charles 3.2.3 released. Minor new features and bug fixes.
- 6 Sep 2008
Charles 3.2.2 released. Minor new features and bug fixes.
- 17 Apr 2008
Charles 3.2.1 released. Minor new features and bug fixes.
- 24 Mar 2008
Charles 3.2 released. Major new features. Release Notes
- 28 Jan 2008
Charles 3.2 public beta released. Download and more information on my blog.
- 19 Dec 2007
Charles 3.1.4 released. Bug fixes and minor new features.
- 21 Nov 2007
Charles Mozilla Firefox add-on updated for compatibility with Firefox 3.0.
- 12 Nov 2007
Charles 3.1.3 released. Minor bug fixes, minor new features.
- Chart tab now includes charts for sizes, durations and types
- Request & Response can now be displayed combined on one split-panel
- SSL handshake and certificate errors are now displayed in the tree
- 29 Aug 2007
Charles 3.1.2 released. Minor bug fixes.
- 27 Aug 2007
Charles 3.1.1 released. Minor bug fixes.
- 13 Aug 2007
Charles 3.1 released.
- 22 May 2007
Charles 3.0.4 released. Fixes SSL bug on Java 1.4.
- 14 May 2007
Charles 3.0.3 re-released. Fixes launch bug on computers that haven't used Charles before.
- 12 May 2007
Charles 3.0.3 released. Various improvements and minor bug fixes.
- 23 Apr 2007
Charles 3.0.2 released. Minor bug fixes and improvements.
- 28 Mar 2007
Charles 3.0.1 released. Minor bug fixes.
- 24 Mar 2007
Charles 3.0 released. Major new features and improvements
- 7 Mar 2007
Charles 3.0 public beta released.
- 27 Feb 2007
Charles v2.6.4 release. Minor bug fixes:
- IBM JDK compatibility
- Improved malformed Referer header support
- 17 Feb 2007
Charles v2.6.3 release. Minor bug fixes:
- Fixed Port Forwarding fault introduced in v2.6.2
- 1 Feb 2007
Charles v2.6.2 release. Major improvements and bug fixes including:
- No more recording limits. Large responses are now saved to temporary files, reducing memory usage.
- MTU support in the throttle settings
- AMF3 / Flex 2 bug fixes
- 2 Dec 2006
Charles v2.6.1 release. Minor bug fixes and improvements:
- SOAP information visible while response is still loading
- AMF3 externalizable object parsing regression fixed
- AMF view for AMF3/Flex messages simplified to hide Flex implementation details
- 27 Nov 2006
Charles v2.6 release. Major improvements and bug fixes including:
- Major UI overhaul
- JSON and JSON-RPC support
- SOAP support
- 20 Sep 2006
Charles v2.5 release. Major improvements and bug fixes including:
- Major UI improvements
- Support for new filetypes including FLV
- Major improvements to AMF / Flash remoting viewer
- Thank you to everyone who made suggestions and participated in the long testing process.
- 1 Jun 2006
Charles v2.4.2 release. Minor improvements and bug fixes including:
- Support for request body compression (used by web services)
- Fix for parsing of AMFPHP responses
- Improvements to AMF viewer
- 6 May 2006
Charles v2.4.1 release. Minor improvements and bug fixes including:
- Firefox extension improved
- AMF 0 and AMF 3 parsing improved
- Look and Feel changes to give a greater (and more consistent) range of font sizes in the Charles look and feel
- SSL error reporting improved when a connection cannot be made to a remote host
- Port Forwarding tool and Reverse Proxy tool re-bind exception fixed
- 26 Apr 2006
Charles v2.4 release. Major new features, improvements and bug fixes including:
- AMF 3 support
- SSL support for IBM JDK (thanks to Lance Bader for helping solve this)
- Automatic Update Checking
- Documentation wiki open to public
- 25 Mar 2006
Charles v2.3 release. Major improvements and bug fixes including:
- Proxy implementation improvements including better handling of keep-alive connections
- SOCKS proxy added, so any SOCKSified application can now run through Charles
- External proxies configuration improvements including authentication
- Flash Remoting / AMF viewer improvements
- Dynamic proxy port support, for multiuser systems
- 5 Nov 2005
Charles v2.2.1 release. Minor improvements and bug fixes including:
- Further improved Firefox proxy configuration
- Port Forwarding enhancements including port ranges and UDP forwarding
- Bug fixes for Reverse Proxy and AMF viewer
- 5 Oct 2005
Charles v2.2 released. Major enhancements and bug fixes including:
- Improved Firefox proxy configuration
- XML viewer improvements
- Line numbers displayed in ASCII viewer
- 2 Sep 2005
Charles v2.1 released. Major new features and enhancements including:
- Automatic Firefox proxy configuration
- Formatted form posts and query string information
- Parsing of SWF and AMF (Flash Remoting) binary formats
- 18 Jun 2005
Charles v2.0 released. Major enhancements and improvements.
Feedback & Reviews
Better Mobile Application Testing with Charles Proxy
by Andrew Bardallis
A comprehensive walkthrough of using Charles to observe and modify traffic, including using it with mobile devices.
Monitor and Debug with Charles Proxy
by Tobias Sjösten
iPhone App Store data mining
by Dan Grigsby
Using Charles to explore the iPhone App Store XML.
iPhone HTTP Connection Debugging
by Gary Rogers
Using Charles to debug the iPhone.
I Love Charles...
by MadeByPi
Basic use of Charles in Flex Design
by Frankie Loscavio
Charles review on flashgroup.net
by Darren Richardson
A great review of Charles from the point of view of Flash developers.
Debugging Flash/Server Interaction with Charles
by uberGeek
Using Charles to find those really annoying Flash bugs in record time.