How to capture Android network traffic with Charles Proxy?

If you need to view network traffic between your mobile phone and the internet, make sure some apps not upload your personal information to their server, you can use a proxy program such as Charles Proxy. It is easy to use. You install the proxy software on your PC or Mac. Then connect your mobile phone to the proxy to capture and inspect the network between your smartphone and the network.

Download the trial version of Charles Proxy from http://www.charlesproxy.com/ (30 days to try, $30 to buy). Install Charles Proxy on your PC or Mac. Go to its Help menu, choose SSL Proxy > Install Charles Root Certificate on a Mobile Device or Remote Browser.

After that, a new dialog pops up with the instructions to configure your mobile phone to use Charles as its HTTP proxy. You get the proxy server IP address, port number and web address to download the SSL certificate.

Use Charles as HTTP Proxy on Android

On your Android phone, go to Settings > WiFi. Long tap on a current wifi network until the context menu pops up. Tap the Modify network option. On the new dialog, tap Show advanced options, choose Manual under the Proxy settings. Enter your PC or Mac IP address in the Proxy hostname field, enter 8888 in the Proxy port field. Then touch Save button.

Now you should be able to capture all HTTP network traffic from your mobile phone using Charles Proxy on your computer. Go to open any website in your web browser on your Android device. You should see a connection request in Charles Proxy on the PC or Mac. Click Allow.

Install Charles Certificate for SSL Proxying on Android

However you can’t access HTTPS URLs on the phone or tablet. Your web browser gives you a security warning when you try to access any website or domain that is secured by SSL. This is because Charles Proxy sits between your Android device and the Internet. All networking requests and responses will be passed through Charles Proxy on your computer. Charles uses its own Root SSL certificate for SSL requests through Charles to hosts enabled for SSL Proxying. Charles SSL certificate won’t be trusted by your browsers or applications. Therefore you need to import the Charles SSL certificate into the mobile phone and trust Charles’ certificates.

As we mentioned above, you get the proxy server IP address, port number and web address to download the SSL certificate from the instructions to configure your mobile phone to use Charles as its HTTP proxy. Visit the URL from your mobile phone to download Charles SSL certificate from web browser to your mobile phone. Then tap on the certificate to install it. Check out more details from this guide to install SSL certificate on Android device.