Message Browser
From the Messages page, you can view the data being produced to a topic.
Browse message data, seek to a specific offset or timestamp by partition, and
select messages you want to download.
- Prerequisites
There must be data being produced to or already present in a topic.
If you don’t already have data
flowing through the topic, you can use the built-in CLI quick start guide,
the Quick Start for Apache Kafka using Confluent Cloud, or the built-in produce new message to topic
feature to populate the Messages window. You can replay old data
that was already produced as long as it
hasn’t been compacted or deleted yet.
Inspect a topic
The Topic Inspection feature in Confluent Cloud enables you to inspect topic details
and browse live streaming messages.
To browse a live stream of messages and inspect a topic:
If you have more than one environment, select an environment.
Select a cluster from the navigation bar and click the Topics menu. The Topics page appears.
In the Topics table, click the topic name link.
Click the Messages tab. The
Messages page displays incoming streaming messages for the topic.
To browse the messages pane:
- Click the horizontal (tabular view) and vertical scrollbars to view all of
the available data. The newest data is displayed at the top of the messages
pane. As you scroll vertically, or hover in the messages pane, a timeline
arrow indicates when the messages were received.
Note
Currently, the message browser lacks the capability to show messages that have associated schemas.
To pause scrolling incoming messages so that you can analyze the data, click
the pause icon. Messages may still be produced to the topic; however,
the message browser does not display newly consumed data while the view is
paused. Click the play icon to resume displaying incoming messages. Clicking
the cards view expand icon automatically pauses the display of incoming messages.
Note
Hovering over the messages pane also holds your place for a quick
glance at data. Moving the cursor focus outside of the messages pane
resumes the incoming flow of messages.
To filter the results, enter the criteria in the Filter by keyword box.
Seek to a particular message using Jump to offset,
Jump to time, or
Jump to timestamp.
Click Columns to select which columns you want to toggle on or off in
the topic messages table. There must be populated message data for the
Columns selector to appear. Narrow the view to focus on the columns of
interest without resorting to horizontal scrolling. If you jump to an
offset or timestamp, the table resets to show all columns again. The Columns
selector is not available in the cards view; it is only applicable
to the table view.
Click the cards or table (default) icon for the layout
view you prefer:
Click the expand icon 
in the cards view to access the contents of the message. Click the Value,
Header, or Key tab. Expanding the card view for a message automatically pauses the display
of incoming data. Clicking the play icon collapses any expanded cards and resumes displaying the
incoming data.
Produce a new message to a topic
You can manually produce a new message to a topic using the built-in produce
new message to topic window.
Click the + sign to expand the window.
Enter a valid JSON message in the input box.
Click Produce. The message is generated and the messages table becomes populated with your entry.
Jump to an offset
To jump to a message offset, click the Jump to offset menu and
enter the offset and partition. Messages are displayed in the message browser pane
starting from the desired offset, and continue to feed in at the top of the
message browser pane unless the message feed is paused (or you are
manually producing messages to a topic).
The record at the offset is highlighted and preselected for
download.
Jump to a date and time
Seeking to a specified time jumps to the earliest offset where the timestamp
was first recorded. Even if there are multiple data points associated with a
timestamp, the seek goes to the earliest offset. Messages are displayed in the
message browser pane starting from the desired time, and continue to feed
in at the top of the message browser pane unless the message feed is paused
(or you are manually
).
To jump to a specific date and time:
Click the Jump to time menu.
Click the default current date and time box to open a calendar.
Select a partition.
Tip
You must select a partition before trying to adjust the time or
apply the new date and time.
Click a calendar date. Use the arrows to go forward or back and select a
month and day.
Click the time box to adjust the time in hours, minutes, seconds, and AM or PM.
Click Apply.
Jump to a timestamp
To jump to a message timestamp, click the Jump to timestamp menu and
enter the timestamp and partition.
The timestamp is displayed in microseconds. Enter your time of interest in milliseconds
into the timestamp box and select a partition.
Seeking to a specified time jumps to the earliest offset where the timestamp
was first recorded. Even if there are multiple data points associated with a
timestamp, the seek goes to the earliest offset. Messages are displayed in the
message browser pane starting from the desired time, and continue to feed
in at the top of the message browser pane unless the message feed is paused
(or you are manually
).
Download selected topic messages
Download selected rows of messages in a JSON format. When you
jump to an offset, date/time, or timestamp,
the record at the offset is highlighted and preselected for download.
Select one or more contiguous or non-contiguous rows. The Download button becomes
available and shows the number of selected messages.
Tip
Press the command key + click to select non-contiguous rows.
Press shift + click on a beginning and ending row to select a
contiguous range of messages.
Click the download icon. A file named selected_data_n.json that contains
the selected messages in JSON format is downloaded into your downloads
directory. The n represents the number of selected messages.
Example filename: selected_data_1.json
Example contents:
[{"topic":"test-topic","partition":2,"offset":7,"timestamp":1570216529854,"timestampType":"CREATE_TIME","headers":[],"key":null,"value":"transaction123"}]