How to create a Postman collection from your browser's requests

A Postman collection is a saved, ordered group of API requests, organized into folders, that you can run, share and version. Besides the requests themselves, a collection can hold variables, auth settings and pre-request or test scripts that apply to everything inside it.

On disk, a collection is a JSON file that follows the Postman Collection v2.1 schema. This is the format tools mean when they say they import or export "a Postman collection". A minimal one looks like this:

{
  "info": {
    "name": "Example app API",
    "schema": "https://schema.getpostman.com/json/collection/v2.1.0/collection.json"
  },
  "variable": [{ "key": "baseUrl", "value": "https://app.example.com" }],
  "auth": {
    "type": "bearer",
    "bearer": [{ "key": "token", "value": "{{token}}", "type": "string" }]
  },
  "item": [
    {
      "name": "Orders",
      "item": [
        {
          "name": "List orders",
          "request": { "method": "GET", "url": "{{baseUrl}}/api/orders?page=1" }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Requests without their own auth inherit it from the parent folder or collection, which is why setting it once at the top saves a lot of edits.

Copy as cURL is the most reliable way to move a single browser request into Postman, because it keeps everything the browser actually sent. In the Network panel, right-click a request and open the Copy submenu. The options that matter here:

• Copy as cURL: one request as a curl command, ready to paste into Postman or a terminal.
• Copy all as cURL: every request currently listed, as a chain of curl commands. Useful for a script, but import into Postman one command at a time to keep request names sensible.
• Copy as fetch: the same request as JavaScript, if you want to replay it from the console instead.

See the Chrome Network features reference for the full list.

The same Import dialog handles cURL and full collection files. Click Use resources or import, select Import, then pick a file or folder, drag it into the window, or paste raw text or a URL. You can also drag files straight into the Postman window. When the import finishes, an Import Complete message appears and the collection shows in the left sidebar.

According to Postman's import documentation, the dialog accepts:

• Postman collections, environments, globals and data dumps.
• cURL commands, imported as single requests.
• OpenAPI specifications, as a collection or as a specification with a collection. AsyncAPI, protobuf, GraphQL and Smithy import as specifications.
• Data from SoapUI, Hoppscotch, Insomnia and Thunder Client, and files from a Git repository.

Collections in the old v1 format are rejected. Convert them with the Postman Collection Transformer first. If you have a whole API described in OpenAPI, importing the spec is faster than pasting requests one by one. See how to generate an OpenAPI spec from traffic.

Click Collections in the sidebar, open View more actions next to the collection, choose More > Export collection, and click Export JSON. Postman downloads the collection as a JSON file that you can import into any other Postman instance, commit to a repository or run in CI. The steps are in Postman's export documentation.

Environments export separately. Collection variables travel with the collection, but secrets you keep in an environment do not, which is usually what you want when sharing.

To go the other way and get a curl command out of Postman, open the request, click Code in the right sidebar, select cURL from the dropdown and click Copy. The code settings icon next to the dropdown controls options such as indentation. This is handy for adding a reproducible command to a bug report.

Requests copied from a browser carry a lot of noise. A short cleanup pass makes the collection reusable:

• Replace the host in every URL with {{baseUrl}} so the same collection works against local, staging and production.
• Delete Cookie and Authorization headers from individual requests and set auth on the collection, using a {{token}} variable.
• Remove browser-only headers such as sec-ch-ua, sec-fetch-*, user-agent and referer unless the server needs them.
• Replace IDs in paths with variables, for example {{baseUrl}}/api/users/{{userId}}.
• Group requests into folders by feature or page.

To run every request in order, open the collection and use the Collection Runner. From a terminal or CI, run the exported file with the Postman CLI or Newman, for example npx newman run example-app.postman_collection.json.

Copying requests one at a time works for five endpoints. For a whole app it is slow and easy to miss calls. Netraptor records the API traffic and writes the collection for you.

• Turn on Keep history for this site in the Netraptor popup and use the app. It records fetch and XHR calls for that domain and its subdomains across page loads, without DevTools open.
• Optionally run Crawl this site to visit the app's same-origin links in your logged-in tab. It skips logout and delete-looking links. Free crawls up to 25 pages, Pro up to 1000.
• Open the Netraptor panel in DevTools and check API Map to see the endpoints it found, with IDs parameterized as /users/{id}.
• On the Export tab, export a Postman Collection v2.1, grouped by page. Strip auth headers and cookies is on by default. Import the file through Postman's Import dialog.

Postman, HAR and curl exports are on the Free plan. OpenAPI 3.1, Bruno and Insomnia exports are part of Pro, a one-time $29.99 licence. Recording and exports stay in your browser, with no account.