---
title: Debug Logs
parent: User Guide
nav_order: 22
last_updated: 2026-07-01
description: View and export the app's own debug logs from inside the app, and attach a capture to a GitHub issue to help diagnose bugs — no adb required.
aliases:
  - debug-logs
  - logcat
  - app-logs
  - bug-report
---

# Debug Logs

When something misbehaves, the app's debug logs are the single most useful thing you can attach to a bug report. Meshtastic can capture them **for you, from inside the app** — you no longer need `adb` or any desktop tooling to collect them.

Open the **Debug Panel** from **Settings → Advanced → Debug Panel**.

> 📎 **Filing an issue?** Export your logs (see below) and attach the `.txt` file to your report at [github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android/issues](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android/issues). A log capture that covers the moment the problem happened turns "it doesn't work" into something a developer can actually track down.

## The two tabs

The Debug Panel has two tabs:

- **Packets** — the decoded mesh traffic your radio has sent and received (protocol-level messages). Useful for diagnosing mesh and routing behavior.
- **App logs** — the app's own diagnostic log (Android *logcat*), including warnings, errors, and stack traces from the app itself. This is usually what a bug report needs.

Each tab has its own **export** button and produces its own file, so you can grab whichever is relevant — or both.

## Viewing app logs

The **App logs** tab shows the most recent log lines from **this app only** — never other apps on your device.

- **Search** — type in the search box to filter to matching lines.
- **Level filter** — the **V / D / I / W / E** chips toggle Verbose, Debug, Info, Warn, and Error lines. Tap a level to hide it; tap again to bring it back. Fatal lines are always shown.
- **Refresh** — the refresh icon re-reads the latest logs.

Error and warning lines are tinted so problems stand out.

## Exporting

Tap the **download** icon to save the current logs to a file. You choose where it goes through the system file picker, and the file is named with a timestamp (for example `meshtastic_logcat_20260701_143312.txt`) so repeated exports never overwrite each other.

Attach that file to your GitHub issue.

> 🔒 **Privacy:** Exports automatically **redact** sensitive values such as channel keys and admin/session keys before writing the file. Even so, logs can contain node names, positions, and other identifying details — glance through the file before sharing it publicly, and share privately if you have any doubt.

## Desktop

The desktop app has no system logcat, so the **App logs** tab shows the app's own captured log output instead. Search, filtering, and export work the same way.

## Related Topics

- [Help & In-App Docs](help-and-docs) — reading this documentation offline inside the app
- [Connections](connections) — if the problem is getting connected to your radio in the first place

---