CSS Diff

As you make CSS changes in the DevTools inspector window this will track your changes and provide you with a nicely formatted diff

CSS Diff: Streamline Web Dev with Live CSS Edits

'CSS Diff' is a must-have Chrome extension for web developers. It tracks CSS changes, made in the DevTools Inspector, in real-time and provides a well-organized diff. This reduces the need for extensive back-and-forth between engineers and designers as it allows for specific, direct feedback on changes. This tool does not work with minified CSS, but works perfectly in a development environment with unminified sources.
Install from Chrome Web Store

Extension stats

Users: 707
-39
Rating: 1.90
(10)
Version: 1.0 (Last updated: 2016-04-20)
Creation date: 2016-04-20
Risk impact: Low risk impact
Risk likelihood:
Manifest version: 2
Size: 20.60K

Other platforms

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Not available on Edge
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Extension summary

When you're working on a project turning a design that was done by someone else into HTML + CSS it can often be frustrating as you go back-and-forth with them trying to tweak things. Often times you'll end up getting marked up screenshots asking for things to be moved, changed, etc. Both the front-end engineer and the designer end up frustrated by all of this back-and-forth.

Once designers are introduced to the Chrome DevTools inspector where they can select elements and tweak CSS values till their heart's content the process can be massively improved because they can provide specific feedback on the values they want changed.

CSS Diff is an extension that eases this feedback cycle by allowing designers to simply send the engineer a common "diff" output of their changes so that those changes can be implemented. Typically you'll end up using something like less, scss, etc to manage your styles so you can just apply the diff directly to the sources, but groking the diff and manually making the updates is much better than trying to make updates based off of marked up screen shots.

This does not work on minified CSS because it is simply keeping a copy of the CSS from when the DevTools were opened and then showing live diff's against that. This typically isn't a problem as giving designers access to an development environment where the source code isn't minified should be trivial.

User reviews

These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews. Chrome Web Store does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate, spammy, or outdated.
Pros
    Cons
    • Doesn't work, just shows white screen.
    • The author didn't explain how to use it.
    • Works kinda but also selects classes I didn't change.
    • Does NOT work at all; no additional tab shows in dev tools.
    • Works only when adding new rules, not when changing existing ones.
    Most mentioned
    • Doesn't work, just shows white screen.
    • The author didn't explain how to use it.
    • Works only when adding new rules.
    User reviews
    This one works, but gotta install it by hand: https://github.com/kdzwinel/CSS-Diff

    Doesn't work, just white screen
    by Stepan Matskevich, 2023-03-31

    Does not work. Just shows white screen.
    by Modern Chili, 2023-03-02
    View all user reviews

    Extension safety

    Risk impact

    CSS Diff requires very minimum permissions.

    Risk likelihood

    CSS Diff has earned a fairly good reputation and likely can be trusted.

    Upgrade to see risk analysis details

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