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Message editor settings

• Last updated:November 18, 2025

• Read time:4 Minutes

TheMessage editor settings page is located underUser interface in theSettings dialog.

You can edit how the message editor is displayed:

• Message editor request views.
• Message editor response views.
• HTTP message display.
• Character sets.
• HTML rendering.
• HTTP message search.
• Hide request headers.
• Hide response headers.

TheMessage editor settings are user settings. They apply to all installations of Burp on your machine.

Message editor request and response views

TheMessage editor request views andMessage editor response views settings enable you to adjust the views of the message content in the message editor. Each view is displayed in an individual tab, and provides the same functionality as the widgets in the Inspector.

For each view option, you can:

• Show - Enable this setting to display the view in a message editor tab. By default thePretty,Raw,Hex, andRender view tabs are displayed.
• Wrap text - Enable this setting to wrap the text inside the message editor.

To reorder the list of views, use theUp andDown buttons.

HTTP message display

These settings enable you to control how HTTP messages are displayed within the HTTP message editor. You can configure the following:

• Font - Select the font style and size you want to use. You can also enable font smoothing.
• Highlight request syntax - Enable this setting to color-code request syntax. This includes any JavaScript, JSON, and CSS content.
• Highlight response syntax - Enable this setting to color-code response syntax. This includes any JavaScript, JSON, and CSS content.
• Pretty print by default - Enable this setting to automatically prettify data, markup, and code. Burp adds standardized line breaks and indentation to unformatted text. Pretty printing is supported for JSON, XML, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Character sets

These settings control how Burp handles character sets when it displays raw HTTP messages. The available settings are:

• Recognize automatically based on message headers - By default, Burp automatically recognizes the character set of each message, based on the message headers. This enables you to work concurrently on messages that use different character sets.
• Use the platform default - Select this option to use the default UTF-8 character set for all messages.
• Display as raw bytes - Select this option to display the messages as raw bytes (using ASCII encoding), without processing any extended characters.
• Use a specific character set - Choose a character set from the drop-down list. This character set is used with all messages.

HTTP headers are always displayed in raw form. The charset encoding options only apply to the message body.

HTML rendering

TheRender view within the HTTP message editor displays HTML content approximately as it would appear in your browser. This setting controls whether Burp can make additional HTTP requests to fully render HTML content (for example, to display embedded images).

Select this setting to increase the quality of Burp's HTML rendering at the expense of some speed. This setting increases the overall number of requests that Burp makes to the target application.

HTTP message search

TheHTTP Message search settings control the search bar at the bottom of the message editor window. By default, none of these settings are enabled:

• Case sensitive - Choose whether the search is case-sensitive.
• Regex - Specify whether the search term is a regular expression or a literal string.
• Auto-scroll to match when text changes - Specify whether the text editor automatically scrolls to the first highlighted match when new text is displayed. This is useful if you want to step through items in the Proxy history, to look for a particular expression in the responses.

Hide request headers

Use this setting to hide specified request HTTP headers in thePretty tab of the message editor by default. This enables you to reduce clutter, helping you focus on more valuable information.

To automatically hide request HTTP headers across Burp, selectHide the following headers by default. Burp hides the defined list of headers. You can customize this list in the following ways:

• Add - Enter a new HTTP header name.
• Remove - Delete the selected HTTP header.
• Clear - Delete all HTTP headers from the list.

Hide response headers

Use this setting to hide specified response HTTP headers in thePretty tab of the message editor by default. This enables you to reduce clutter, helping you focus on more valuable information.

To automatically hide response HTTP headers across Burp, selectHide the following headers by default. Burp hides the defined list of headers. You can customize this list in the following ways:

• Add - Enter a new HTTP header name.
• Remove - Delete the selected HTTP header.
• Clear - Delete all HTTP headers from the list.